Jug-a-Rum

New Header

2007-10-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

So, I put the new header together in about 20min. I was gonna put Moses back in my new logo, but I couldn't figure out how to fit him in without making it look too busy. Anyhow, I like the Tennessee theme, just wish I had a better picture of Nashville. Guess when I pick my Dad up from the airport in a couple weeks I'll photograph the skyline.

I am however, having a problem with the new header. I use a Mac, so I only use Safari and Firefox as my web browser. For some reason, the header looks faded in Firefox, and in Safari the colors look really rich but the background gray is different than my header gray!

If anyone out there is visiting my page using Internet Explorer, please tell me if this is happening in your browser!

***Update***

So, my former neighbor caught me on IM and told me to save as a .PNG file. So Now it looks really awesome in Safari, but the colors look toned down in Firefox. WTF?

Under Construction

2007-05-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

I'm bored with the same old, same old. I'm going to upgrade to the new blogger and make a new header. Change things up a bit!

Free Speech and Responsibility

2007-05-26T13:01:00.002-07:00

So, this morning I caught a debate on FOX news about four women being fired for gossiping at work. The whole segment was basically a back and forth about “free speech rights” vs “property rights”. Now, please forgive me, as I’ve forgotten the names of the pundits involved in the segment. I don’t have a DVR, and somehow my trusty pen and pad were nowhere to be found. This was the first time I’d heard about this, but instantly I thought about responsibility. Specifically responsibility for one’s actions.

We absolutely have the right to free speech. I’m not arguing that. God gave us a mouth, and our constitution gives us the right to say what we want. That doesn’t however, mean we’re free from ramifications. It’s sort of the Catch-22 of free speech.

The greatest and most recent example of this, is that Don Imus character. He decided to call Rutgers University women's basketball team a bunch of nappy headed hoes. Which by the way, was his right. And for that he was duly canned! Is anybody (besides Imus) complaining about that? So, what makes these four ladies any different?

That said, it surprised me that in all the ruckus and chest-thumping about how the firings were a violation of their free speech right, that none of the pundits mentioned that these women are adults and responsible for their own actions. In this case, spreading a rumor.

Now, according to a cnn.com article titled “Town fires 4 employees for gossiping about boss”, one of the ladies states that "We didn't start the rumor, nor did we say there was an affair going on", and "We didn't have time like they think ... to sit around and just gossip. That is so untrue."

That may be so, but I find it extremely hard to believe they didn’t help spread it. After all CNN declared in the first sentence of the article that gossip is “a staple of the American workplace”. If you keep reading further in the article you’ll also notice that these women were very bitter towards the woman in the rumor. This copy and paste from that page says it all...

“The women say what upset them about the rumor was the perception of impropriety by the public and preferential treatment "A" was receiving, including higher pay than Drewniak and Skorupski despite having less seniority and experience.

"What an insult," Piper said. "Doesn't length of time and length of service count for anything in this community?".

So, because they were “insulted”, they helped keep the fire stoked? Thats not office gossip or any other kind of free speech folks, thats called retribution. Beside these women needing to take responsibility for their actions, it seems they should also pick up the Bible and read about King David and the Green Eyed Monster!

I'm Back! Well sort of...

2007-05-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

I'm actually "borrowing" my neighbors wireless connection at the moment. I may or may not have unlimited access to the internet as I do at present. It all depends on when my neighbor moves, or perhaps he'll just get tired of me eating all of his bandwidth and cut me off. I don't know. What I do know though is that I can't afford a decent connection at the moment. Hence my title. Yes my iBook is fixed, and yes I broke down and bought an iMac (which is why I can't afford the net now), so I'm back but I don't know for how long.

Anyhow, I'm also back in America! I'm not going to go into great detail in this post, but I will let you know that it's been one hell of a rough ride since I've come back. Things haven't gone the way I had envisioned them going. Most of the problems are things that are out of my control.

Stockman, I'm really sorry I haven't emailed you. I'm not trying to be rude or ungrateful. HBW left our address book in MI, and Clint ate the tag off of the doll you got him. Go figure. My Mother in Law is going to be bringing the book down to us this weekend, so I'll send an email your way as soon as possible.

My Macintosh is DEAD!

2006-12-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

My little iBook G4 died. My friends weren't lying when they said "When a Mac crashes, it crashes hard"! The harddrive is terminated! No iBook, no blogging. I have the Applecare plan and I'm covered Dec 2007, but it's only valid in the United States and Canada. Since I'm currently in Europe it's no good to me. Good thing I'm moving back to the States in January. Otherwise, it would be no computer for Jug for a long time. Oh sure, I can just go to the apple store here in the dutchland, but I've paid for the insurance so I'm going to use it. Plus, I've got better things to do with my money. Like saving up for a downpayment on a house. A computer is like a car, both are nessasary now-a-days and both are a really shitty investment! Whatever money you throw into them is forever gone!

Anyhow, I'm at my neighbors house, using his internet. This will be the last post for a couple of months. I plan a return to steady posting sometime in March. Hopefully. Moving is always a big pain in the ass, and once thats done I've got to get the Mac fixed.

Helen Jean Phelps a.k.a. Nan 1923-2006

2006-10-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

This post is very long, but please take the time to read it all the way through

It’s still very hard to swallow that I have lost my Nan. I’ve known it’s been coming for a long time now, but I always put it in the back of my mind and kept telling myself it would never happen. What hurts the most about Nan dying is the fact that I feel I’m losing all the family I’ve got.

Oh sure, I’ve got family scattered throughout the United States, but this is different. It was only Nan, Pop, Uncle Gordon, Mom, Dad, and my two sisters and I down in Florida. Occasionally my grandmothers brother and wife (Uncle Albert and Norma) would come down and stay for the winter, but they usually stayed to themselves.

Uncle Gordon died (unexpectedly) a few years ago, Uncle Albert died earlier this year, and now I’ve lost my Nan. See what I mean about losing my family?

It’s hard to take it all in. These three family members are gone in only a matter of a few short years. I’ll never ever get another chance to say hello, hug them again, or even introduce them to my son Clint. They’ll never get to be a part of my son’s life as they are to mine.

I’m still completely heartbroken that my Nan has died. I’m happy in that she is no longer in pain, but I’m angry that she had to go. I thought I’d never lose my Nan. In my eyes, she was immortal.

Anyhow, enough of my moaning, I’m going to tell you a little bit about Nan in my life. These little tidbits are not in chronological order. As I think about them, I write them.

When I was little, I used to always stay the weekends at my grandparents house in Foxwood. I loved it! I honestly think I spent more weekends at their house then my two sisters did. Nan always had all the good toys ready for me. Little die-cast metal cars, a blue snake toy (hard to explain what it is), and my all time favorite was the huge bucket of legos she kept under the Television. I would spend hours building things with those little plastic blocks! In fact, now that I think about it, I bet she still has those damn legos under the Television for me!

Nan was one hell of a cook! Nobody, and I mean nobody could top Nan’s cooking. The heck with Betty Crocker, she’s got nothing on Nan. There is one recipe that she made that I couldn’t get enough of. Stuffed cabbage or something like that. I hope she has the recipe in her house still, because I want it!

Speaking of food. A funny thing that I noticed, but never gave much thought about until recently was the fact that Nan would never eat supper with us. The men and grandkids that is. She would always wait till we were done eating our fill before she got hers. I’ve always thought this to be odd, until I read a book recently about people who grew up during the depression. Looking back now, I think she did this because of a mentality along the lines of “Feed the men and kids first. Kids need the food to grow and men the food to be strong for work”. It’s just a theory I’ve been floating around. It’s really the only way I can explain to myself why she did what she did.

On another note, there were occasions when Nan would eat with all of us. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthdays, and at restaurants. But that was it!

Speaking of food,...again. Nan started to get crazier with her food as the years went on. No not the food she fed us, but what she would eat herself. I swear to you that when I was really little she would eat meat. Then all of a sudden she stopped eating cow and chicken altogether and would only eat fish. Then Nan stopped eating anything that had a head on it at one point in it’s existence. It’s weird because she would cook and feed us meat, but she wouldn’t dare eat it herself.

Sunday mornings before church was always awesome for me too. Whenever I was at Nans, she would cook me sausage, eggs, and bacon for breakfast. And if I was good all weekend, I’d be lucky and get a bowl of grits! I love grits (can you tell I’m Southern?). Nan said I was just like Uncle Gordon, always wanting grits for breakfast.

For my tenth or eleventh birthday (can’t really remember what one), Nan got me the best present of all my birthdays. A Transformer! You know, “Robots in disguise”! It wasn’t just any transformer though, it was the Decepticon Space-shuttle transformer!

When I spent the summer with Nan and Pop in their cabin in N.C., Nan made me go to the Peacock Playhouse and try out for a part in Alice in Wonderland. I was to be a card soldier. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but at some point I was no longer going to rehearsals. It’s a huge possibility that I embarrassed Nan by doing something crazy and then lying about it like Huck Finn. At that point in my life, I was known for spinning a tale or two. Punishment, no Alice in Wonderland for Jug!

Whilst in N.C., Nan made me do something that I absolutely dreaded. Oh, I hated her at the time for making me do it, but I can’t give her enough thanks now. She made me go to the library and check out a bunch of books. Oh, not just any books. Sure, I tried being sneaky and picked the picture books, but she wouldn’t have it. No, I had to read books beyond my level. I know for a fact one was the story of Hiawatha, another was Buck (some kind of dog book), and a whole slew of others. She would make me sit down at the supper table and read for a whole hour, and if I had made her mad that day she would make me read aloud! Anyhow, she started a passion in me that hasn’t stopped. I love reading. I kept it a secret for the longest time though. I didn’t want any of my friends back in Florida to know I had become a book worm. If they’d of known I liked books, they would have called me a homo and never talked to me again (You have to understand that until the Canadians took over our little town, things were real redneck, and reading was not a respectable thing for a boy to be doing)! Reading was truly an ass-whooping offense!

Here’s a funny memory. This was also in N.C. for the summer! Out back of Nan and Pops cabin was Tusquitee Creek. It was fast running water where their cabin was, but just down a ways was a calm, deep part of the creek. The swimming hole! Now, at the time, I considered myself to be a pretty awesome swimmer. My mother on the other hand didn’t think so. She made my grandmother make me wear a life-preserver vest whenever I would go swimming, just in case I got sucked out by the rapids. And you better believe Nan made me wear that little orange devil! I was so embarrassed about it. I looked like such a dork. I’m sure Nan has a picture of it somewhere.

Another funny thing about the creek, is for about the first couple of weeks in N.C. I wouldn’t go in the water. Nan would get me all suited up in my life-preserver and take me down to the swimming hole, and all I would do is stand in the ankle deep water. Oh she would get livid with me! Hey, I’m from Florida and you don’t go swimming in the freshwater unless you’ve got a death wish. How the hell was I suppose to know there were no alligators in the Smokey Mountains? Finally, Nan got so fed up with my not going beyond ankle deep water, that she got Pop to come down to the creek and strong arm me into the deep end! I was scared shitless as I was swimming around, scanning the area for anything that could be eyeing me up for lunch. Eventually I got over my fear of freshwater, and Nan eventually let me swim without the damn life-preserver!

Nan also took me to the Cherokee Indian Reservation in N.C. too. I got to meet with the chief! I have a picture somewhere at home of me and the chief. I’ll have to dig it up eventually. I also got to watch the Cherokee Indians making a canoe the old fashioned way. Being on the reservation was a truly cool experience, and led to me reading a whole lot of Cowboy and Indian books.

Nan always got me a 50 dollar savings bond for my birthday. Without fail, I would always receive one in the mail a couple of weeks after my birthday. Last year was the first time I didn’t receive one for my birthday. Pop just wrote me a check for 25 bucks instead. Nan couldn’t write much anymore, so she couldn’t get one for me. I’m going to miss not getting one for my birthday anymore.

Speaking of savings bonds, my first savings bond ever was from Nan!

When my father was hit by a drunk driver and almost killed, Nan was the one who took care of us kids while Mom was at the hospital. Nan always took good care of us. I don't think anybody could ever ask for a better grandmother.

Anyhow, I could go on and on and on about Nan in my life, but I just wanted to show you some of the more special moments in my memory banks. She was a wonderful lady, and an even better Grandmother. I will miss her always, and I look forward to seeing her again in Heaven.

My Vote Will Count!

2006-10-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

Great News! I JUST VOTED! Yeah Baby! Ballot came in the mail today, and it’s going right back to Florida tomorrow! SWEET!

This is my first time voting! I could have voted in 2000 when I was in the Marine Corps, but I decided that I wasn’t ready to make concrete decisions on what direction I felt best to vote America towards. It was a maturity thing. Sure I was a big tough Marine ready to take on the worlds toughest men in a bar fight, but at the time I hardly knew a thing about politics. At this point I realized that something had to be done about this, so by around 2001 (pre 9/11), I was knee deep in political books. I began to form my personal ideology.

I was suppose to vote in the 2004 elections, but I never received my absentee ballot. I was pissed! I took the time to write my Supervisor of Elections to get everything in order, and I never received the f***ing ballot!

This time I was taking no chances. I was not going to miss the mid-terms! I personally called my local election office and had them mail a ballot to me! The ladies on the other end of the line were very friendly, and they didn’t get annoyed with me when I constantly asked them to repeat back to me all the information I gave them. Told you I wasn’t taking any chances. They said the ballot would be in the mail the following day! It’s about the first time I’ve ever had good customer service from the government!

Anyhow, in case you didn’t catch it in the first paragraph, I’m a Floridian. My personal ideology is conservative. Now, I hate both political parties but I voted a straight republican ticket. Why? I do this because Republicans are more in line (barely) with my ideology than say socialist liberal Democrats. I simply choose the lesser of two evils.

The main reason for needing to vote this time was not the election of politicians (it never really is). I could care less about those useless windbags. It’s all the BS propositions and amendments to the State constitution that I’m concerned about. You know the little things legislators and special interest groups get placed on the ballot to strip more of your right to govern yourself. I’m not going to go into all the amendments that were on the ballot, but lets say I only voted “Yes” for two of them. One was to do with limiting Eminent Domain, and the other was less property tax for the elderly poor. The rest were a friggin’ joke (especially amendment III, google it if you want to know what I’m talking about)!

Oh well, I’m just really ecstatic that I finally got to flex one of my rights today. It feels good. It’s cool.

Please Excuse My Excessive Absense

2006-10-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Things have been bananas here for me lately. Got a lot of problems to deal with. None with our newborn, thankfully. I do still plan on writing a post about the birth of our son, so please stay with me!

Most of my problems have been money matters. Most annoying is the State of Virginia trying to take our money even though we're not residents of that stinking tax rathole. Also, the lovely socialist government of the Netherlands is trying to keep money of ours and we're not even citizens. Most disturbing though, are all the end of the year bills coming in the mail now! We weren't charged enough by our utilities company for the year (gas and electric), so we just had to pay them about 900 bucks! Our end of the year water bill came in, and we owe them and extra 200 bucks too! It's not over yet either, we're expecting yet another bill from the Gemeente (local government) for garbage pick up and television! Thats going to be a whopper, just like every other year since living in this nightmare.

What's so frustrating, is the fact that no matter how much we save our money, it seems to somehow go right out the door! I just want to rip my friggin' hair out! Although, if this s*** keeps up I won't have to worry, it'll fall out by itself!

Ok, enough ranting from me! I've got bigger things to worry about at the moment.

I do have a prayer request for ya'll though. My grandmother is on the verge of leaving this world. I called the ICU unit where my mother works and asked one of her co-workers if "it was time". She said very soon. I spoke with my grandmother for about 30 seconds and told her that I loved her and good bye. Damn that was hard to do. So please would you all pray for my grandmother. Pray that Jesus will finally come to get her and end the suffering. Finally, please pray for me. I didn't think it would happen, but I lost it on the phone with her today. Please pray to give me strength when the time finally comes for her to go home. :(

Death by Stingray?

2006-09-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

Who the hell...nevermind! This is so unexpected! I mean come-on! A Stingray? A man that wrestles huge-ass crocodiles for a living gets snuffed out by a Stingray? I’m just completely shocked!

I had to dig up this picture from my iPhoto catalog. When HBW and I were visiting Amsterdamistan on a week of leave, we met up with Steve Irwin while he was filming a commercial for some Dutch business! We just happened to be walking down the right neighborhood at the right time.

It just feels so wrong! A stingray? Damn...

I'm a Father Now!

2006-08-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

World meet Clint, Clint meet World! Today at 12:02 PM, my Hot Babe Wife gave birth to our first child, our son Clint! It was an awesome experience. There are no words in the dictionary to describe the feelings surging through my body at this very moment. I helped create this life! I can’t stop thinking about him! It sort of gives you an understanding of why God loves us so much that he gave his only son so that we may join him in the kingdom. My feelings for life could only be a fraction of that of a being who created the infinite cosmos, earth, and humans!

Anyhow, I’m beat from todays thrill ride of life! I’m going to bed, but I promise that I’ll write an in-depth post about my experience in a couple of days!

Stuff

2006-08-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

Good Bye Diego

So things have come to a head lately as far as our cat goes. HBW and I love him dearly, but sadly we’re going to have to take him back to the animal shelter. We’ve had him for two years now and we’re attached to him, but he has an issue that just doesn’t jive with HBW and I. He sprays! He has since the day we got him, but lately it’s been a bit too extreme. We’ve tried everything to correct the problem, but nothing has worked. And yes he is neutered!

Anyhow, for the longest time it’s been tolerable. Sure his male-cat-juices smell horrible, but it’s always been the same process. He sprays somewhere in the house, and I come right behind him and sanitize the location. This time though, he decided to spray our soft leather couches. He has been on a rampage lately with the spraying. He completely destroyed the love-seat. He spent the whole night spraying all over it. He actually hit it up so much that it leaked through the couch and dripped all over the floor! That was just one of the couches. The large couch didn’t get sprayed on as badly as the love-seat, but never-the-less it is permanently ruined just like the other.

I’m so furious about the couches! We have to sit somewhere, so we’re still using the big couch. So we now smell like cat spray. Not a very pleasant smell. I’m going to miss him much, but I most certainly won’t miss the smell of his spray.

So tomorrow it’s so long to Diego!

Cooking

My mother-in-law is an awesome lady. Every time she sends a care-package to HBW she always slips in a cooking magazine for me! Oh, in case you didn’t know, I love cooking. Stop by my other website to see what I’ve been cooking. Just click my banner up top!

So back to my tale. In this care package my M-i-L sent HBW, she packed “Everyday With Rachael Ray” inside for me! I’ve never heard of the lady before, but after fingering through the magazine I was quite impressed. I found one particular recipe that I absolutely had to make! It’s Seared Scallops and Tenderloin Steaks with Manhattan Sauce.

It was really simple to do. Prep time was short, as was the cooking time. Mine didn’t quite turn out looking like the picture in the magazine, but it sure tasted good! I only had two complaints about it (trust me I critique my cooking like crazy). HBW and I agreed that the sauce was a bit runny. It’s supposed to be, but we prefer a thicker sauce. The second annoyance with the recipe really has nothing to do with the recipe at all. When I cook, I cook to HBW’s tastes and not my own. You see, HBW only eats cow-meat cooked all the way through, whereas I basically like my piece of beef straight off the cow! To me this would have been a better meal had I not cooked the tenderloins all the way through.

Aside from my two grievances, it was a lovely romantic dish!

A Decision

I’ve pretty much come to a decision on what I want to do about schooling. I’ve resisted going to college for quite some time now. I haven’t resisted going because I’m afraid, but because I believe it’s the worlds largest consumer fraud!

My philosophy is (in a huge run-on) “Why should I spend 500 to 700 of my hard-earned dollars on a class, books and have someone else's views (by views I mean LIBERAL ideology) thrust upon me, when I can walk down to my local library, pay 5 bucks for a membership card and check out all the knowledge in the world and form my own ideology?”

It’s not the core classes I have problems with. I don’t mind shelling out the dough for English classes, Math classes, Foreign Language Classes, and what not. These are courses that are worth my money. To me they’re a good business transaction. I pay money to enhance the basics the government sent me into the world with. I have a burning desire to make my English better, so I’ve no problem with shelling out the cash. It’s the same with mathematics. Although I’m not good at it, it’s worth the price to me to get better at it.

My largest problem with vessels of higher education is the “fluff” classes. The garbage they say you need not just in order to graduate, but to “enlighten” one’s self. Classes like “Happiness”, or one my wife recently had to take “Critical Thinking”. One needs to spend hard earned money to learn these skills? What ever happened to practical application? Do people no longer go out into the world and fail, and then afterwards get back up dust off the pants and march on with a new battle plan?

Apparently it’s not an option to fail or be miserable at any point in your life anymore. You must now pay money to learn how to be happy or think critically. Or is it just another way for universities to suck more money from you and keep you permanently in debt.

Anyhow, back to my decision. I’ve decided that I’m going to go to culinary school when I get back to the States. I love cooking, so why not try to get better at it. I don’t feel like I’d be wasting my money. I’m enhancing an already existing skill! Plus the bonus of it all is that I only need to take core classes! You know, the stuff I don’t mind spending my money on.

Let’s just hope and pray that the government will allow me to use my GI bill for this type of schooling!

Neighborhood Fire

2006-07-24T04:51:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday turned out to be an interesting day.

HBW and I had just arrived home from church, and I was in an awful mood. Our house was trashed, and smelled like a kennel. We do have three pets, and our windows downstairs don’t open.

Anyhow, I was in a foul mood because I knew I had to clean it, but I didn’t really want to! Never-the-less I did what had to be done. Cleaned out the dog cages, dusted, swept all the doggy hair up, vacuumed the couches off, and mopped the floor! HBW cleaned the kitchen, so thats one thing I didn’t have to touch. I did however mop the kitchen floor too.

After I was done with this, I went outside to dump the dirty mop water down the drain. While outside, I caught a whiff of burning grass. I figured it was some dumb-ass kids in the park playing with fire. I decided I was going to go out and tell them off. I walked over to the bike path just to the right of our house and noticed a good bit of smoke coming from the end of the path. OH S***!

I quickly ran back home, and shouted for HBW! She came to the kitchen door, and I said “I think things are going to get very ugly really quick”! As soon as I said this, she could smell the burning brush in the park. The electricity started firing off in her head. She sped into action, and grabbed me a bottle of water. As soon as I got it, I took off for the smoke.

I ran down the bike path, towards the smoke! On the way there, another man was also running towards the smoke. I caught up to him, and he shouted “I’ve called the fire department”! I said “awesome, lets go see what we can do”!

We arrived at the scene and noticed that the fire was quickly eating through the underbrush and heading towards the high-grass and trees. Then out of nowhere, the tall grass burst into flame. The heat pushed us back! I quickly realized the bottle of water HBW gave me wasn’t gonna do squat! These flames were HUGE!

I looked around to see if there was anything I could grab to stem the fires spread. I noticed three dutch gentlemen outside of their houses. They were just standing there! This fire was maybe 5 meters from their houses, and they’re STANDING, STARING AT THIS FIRE GROW!

I shouted at them “Hey, get a f***ing hose”! They just looked at me as if I were out of my minded! I shouted in dutch “SLANG, SLANG NU”! They just brushed me off!

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! There was a fire only 5 meters from their houses, and they stood there doing nothing! This just isn’t natural! There are certain things as humans that you do in an emergency! When there’s a fire, you quickly get something to try to put it out. After an earthquake, you start digging for survivors. After a hurricane or tornado strikes, you go out and pick the pieces up! After a terrorist attack, you start dropping bombs and taking over countries! THESE MEN DID NOTHING!!! Here I am, in my Sunday’s best attire doing my damnedest to fight this fire with the little that I had (basically just grabbing dirt and trying to smother it), and all these men could do was stare!

I’ve been saying for weeks now, that it was only a matter of time that this happened in the park. We’ve had no rain for a couple of months, and all the underbrush is dried and brown. It’s turned into the perfect environment for a blaze. I was doing my damnedest to put this thing out because I knew that if it hit the heavily forested area of the park it was over. The wind was pulling the fire in our neighborhoods direction. I knew if it hit those trees our neighborhood was going to go bye bye!

I heard the fire engine off in the distance, and I could tell it was going to the wrong street. Our street. Without hesitation, I bolted back down the bike path and over to our street. I saw the fire engine coming down the hill and pointed them in the direction of the fire. I got a couple of honks and a thankful wave from them.

I told HBW what had happened at the fire, and she just shook her head in disbelief. Our dutch neighbors overheard what I told HBW and they too were shocked that the men did nothing.

I decided to go check out the progress of the firefighters so I ran back up the bike path. Within minutes of arriving, they had put out the fire. Just in time too. The fire was right at the edge of the trees in the park. Just another minute, and it could have been a very nasty day for all in this neighborhood.

God Bless Firemen!

I wanted to beat the s*** out of those three dutch a**holes that stood doing nothing, but by then the police had arrived. I hope he gave those three sorry excuses for humans tickets for doing absolutely nothing. Secretly as I was walking back to our house, I hoped the dutch cop would bash their brains in for not doing anything.

Day 1 - Start of our Bavarian Vacation

2006-07-18T16:48:00.000-07:00

(Due to the graphic nature of some of these posts, parental discretion is advised! Although the author of this blog try’s very hard to self-censor his foul mouth, some expletives may have passed under the radar. If you can’t handle it, then the author says “Tough S***, go back to the Barney Blog you came from”! Some posts may also be far to long for those in this world with attention spans of chipmunks! If you feel you can’t handle lengthy posts, then the author suggests getting a prescription of Ritalin. Also, due to the length of posts, they have been split into 8 segments, each consisting of one days time-span. Although the author of this blog wishes all to read every post posted, his personal suggestion for people too lazy to read them all is Day 3 and Day 6.)

As much as I was looking forward to going on vacation, I was not however looking forward to the 8+ hour drive to get to our destination!

Tracking back a little bit (before I get way ahead of myself in this post), I shouldn’t really call this a vacation, because in all actuality it isn’t. This is, in fact, our HONEYMOON that we never had a chance to have after our wedding! Originally we had planned on taking our honeymoon in Santorini (some semi-isolated greek island), but that fell through after a series of unfortunate events. You know, typical BS like an eye surgery for HBW, a couple of hernia operations for myself, a wrecked government vehicle, HBW’s company commander being a total cock-smooch, and so on and so forth.

Anyhow, HBW had 17 use or lose vacation days, so she booked us a room in the Edelweiss Lodge in Garmish Germany a few months back. We have 8 days reserved to do whatever we please! Unfortunately HBW and I have different ideas of what vacation means.

When I’m told “we’re going on vacation”, I think of loafing about, getting a full body massage, soaking in a tub till I look like a raisin, drinking mass quantities of liquor, soaking up all of Gods good sun, sleeping in, reading a couple good books, and being treated like royalty even though we damn well can’t afford it!

HBW on the other hand hears the word “vacation” and immediately begins planning! Every detail down to the nano-second must be accounted for! Her motto would go something like “We’ve only got 8 days? Shit, we better pack it all in then”! If it’s a touristy thing, then dammit, we’ve got to do it no matter what!

Can you see the problem? The second she mentioned “vacation/honeymoon”, I just said to myself “Ah f***, this is gonna blow”! I just thought of the last time we had “vacation”, which was in Normandy France, and that was just non-stop go go going EVERYWHERE! Try walking and driving everywhere with 3 hernia and see how you like it! We didn’t even get a chance to relax and be with each other!

Well, HBW and I came up with a solution for our Honeymoon! We would do a half and half thing. We’d do a fair share of HBWs touristy activities, and also have some lazy cool down time JUG style! I think it’s going to work out quite nicely.
Tomorrow HBW and I are going to have a relaxing day! We’re going to get up and loaf about for a bit, then we’re going to go for a swim in the indoor pool, have a nice meal for lunch, and perhaps if all goes well we’ll get to go up on the lift on the biga** mountains just outside the lodge grounds, and also maybe I’ll get a chance to catch up on my other intended blog post “Luxembourg Friendship Week”! Then the following two days are going to be HBW activities. We’re catching a bus over to Austra on Wed. to see Hitler’s Eagles Nest, and on Thursday we’re going on a tour to Northern Italy! Then on Friday, it’s back to Jug’s activities! I’m going to be getting the Swedish Massage with Heated Stone Therapy, and HBW is going to get the Maternity Massage!

So much for this post being about the drive! Nothing special about the drive anyhow. Oh except for HBW and I’s little argument! I was driving for about 4 hours, and then I told HBW that I wanted to switch for a little bit so I could take a nap. She got all pissed off, and went on and on about “How come I don’t get to take a nap when you’re driving”, and “That’s not fair”! I tried telling her calmly that “I don’t let you take a nap, because you’re always trying to take it at the wrong time”! Seriously though, I waited until we got to a stretch of about 230 km before we would hit the next exit. She always want’s to take a nap when there’s like .5 km between 20 exits in a row (a bit exaggerated to prove my point). Honestly, if she wants to claim to be the navigator, than I need her expertise the most during mass Ausfahrts, not 230 km stretches! Anyhow she just wasn’t having any of it. So needless to say we started bitching back and forth! It ended as quickly as it began, with me in the passenger seat taking an hour and forty-five minute nap before resuming the helm for the rest of the drive!

Day 2 - Relaxation Day

2006-07-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

HBW didn’t book us for any of the touristy bus trips the lodge provides, so today was my day to choose what to do!

I ended up staying up the night before till 4:30 in the morning, so needless to say I slept in! Not too late though, only till about 10 am. I just couldn’t seem to get to sleep last night! I don’t know why, being that I had driven 6 of the 8 hours it took to get here. Anyhow, I stayed up playing my new Nintendo DS Lite, and when I got bored with that I started to read my Superman Returns book that I had picked up at the shopette earlier in the day. Oh well, it was my day to choose what we were going to do, so sleeping in was absolutely on the plate! Hey it’s vacation, I don’t have to get up if I don’t want to!

Anyway, after we got up and ate our breakfast (which by the way was expensive and sucked), I decided we should go up one of the lifts to the top of the mountains! It didn’t look like much of a walk from the Lodge so we decided to go by foot instead of the car. I wouldn’t go as far to say it was a bad decision to walk, but it was quite the trek. By the time we headed out it was already hot and muggy, and HBW is also now 8 months pregnant. It took forever to get to our destination at the bottom of the mountain! Frequent stops along the way didn’t help, but HBW gets braxton-hicks contractions all the time!

Well, we finally made it to the bottom of the mountain, and upon arriving we had two lifts to choose from! One was the Kreuzeckbahn, and the other was the Alpspitzbahn! They were only separated by about 200 meters distance. Upon close inspection of the huge map in between the two of them I decided we should take the Alpspitzbahn. I didn’t come to this decision lightly either. It took me a solid ten minutes to make up my mind. Not that the time mattered, because I couldn’t go anywhere anyways, because HBW was in the middle of some super contractions and a pee break too.

So, back to my decision. You see the Kreuzeckbahn lift was impressive looking. It looked like it would be a lot of fun going up to the mountain top with it. The lift had all these little cocoon like pods that would take you up and down the mountain. They also looked comfortable too. The station that housed all of these little pods that would go back and forth also look all futuristic!

On the other hand, the Alpspitzbahn was just one huge box that everybody would get inside. It looked like a beat up DC Metrorail Car without the seats! It would only come back and forth once an hour, and it’s hub looked like a roman ruin. Ok, maybe not that bad but in comparison to futurama lift hub, it looked archaic.

I chose Alpspitzbahn, because the other lift looked way to safe! I wanted an adventure dammit. I mean, you don’t ride a roller coaster just because “It’s fun”, you ride the roller coaster because you’re tempting death. Thats what makes the ride fun. You’ve beat death because you survived 50 loops without a derail! Anyway, Alpspitzbahn also happened to go a hell of a lot higher up on the mountain than it’s futuristic rival!

HBW clanged to my arm the whole way up (which is also another good reason for taking this lift).

We got to the top in about 10 minutes, and the view was SPECTACULAR! I took a ton of pictures while up there! I looked uber-touristy! I ran all over the mountaintop while HBW lay on a lawn chair soaking up the sun’s rays! I had an awesome time up there, although admittedly I was winded quite easily. Thin air and all!

When we got back down to the valley, HBW and I walked back to the lodge, hopped in the car and scooted on over to the AFFES Subway for lunch. I had a Cold Cut Trio, which was quite awesome, seeing as I hadn’t had one if about 6 months (the nearest american style Subway near to where we’re stationed is in Belgium which is a 2 hour drive)!

After that we came back to the lodge and loafed around! HBW took a two hour nap, and I kept on reading my Superman book (which by the way is actually a decent read for being a novel based off of a hollywood movie).

When sleeping beauty finally woke up, she (plus our son inside of her) were hungry! She picked the restaurant we would go to for supper. She had seen this Italian joint when we drove through the city yesterday, so she chose to go there. I hate driving in Europe in general, but I especially hate driving in european cities that I have no idea where I’m going or where I’m going to park the car. So, I decided we should walk this too. BAD IDEA! I thought it was closer to the lodge than what it really was. It should have only taken a normal (unpregnant) couple about 15 minutes to walk there, but we’re not normal right now! HBW is friggin’ huge and has to stop constantly, and walks sort of like a penguin as well! It took us a half hour just to get to our destination. I’m not trying to be a complainer, but it really sucks being a 6’ 5” guy walking with teeny tiny steps so I could walk beside my babe!

The meal turned out to be pretty nice, albeit a bit pricey, but still very nice. But if I thought the walk there was long, the walk back was an epic! I’d rank it up there with Homer’s Odyssey! It took forever and then some, but after many many many many stops, we finally made it back to the lodge!

Once back we decided to head down to the indoor pool for a bit of a swim. It was pretty nice, but we didn’t stay for too long. It was apparent that the parents were just bringing their children down to the pool so it could be the babysitter while they headed upstairs to knock back some brews! After witnessing the behavior of most their children, I decided I would probably want to get s***-faced too if I were them!

Oh well gotta hit the hay now, we’ve got a big day tomorrow! Gonna go on a touristy bus ride to Hitler’s Eagles Nest that HBW booked for us! Awesome!

Day 3 - Touristy Trip To Hitler's Eagles Nest

2006-07-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

HBW had actually booked us this bus tour from our home in the NL, prior to coming here. She selected the Hitler’s Eagles Nest tour for today. Altogether I think we had a pretty good touristy time today. Albeit, we’re a bit exhausted now.

We got up at 630 this morning to make sure that we didn’t miss the 730 tour bus out of Edelweiss. As soon as I got out of bed, I knew it was going to be a bad day for me. I was sick to my stomach, and I hadn’t even eaten anything yet! Problem is, I couldn’t drop the kids off at the pool before we had to catch the bus!

I was having the most awful pains in my lower abdominal region, but I still couldn’t go! Luckily, about 2 hours into the 4 hour drive to Austria we made a pit-stop at a touristy bathroom attraction. I dashed down to the lower level of the building, put my 50 euro-cent in the dish, and slammed my cheeks down on the porcelain throne. It didn’t take long to “clear the system”, but I still felt no better than before! I knew then, I was in for a tough day.

After everybody was completed doing their business, we all hoped back on the tour bus, and headed to our final destination,... the Eagles Nest! Along the way to the Nest, I knocked out about a quarter more of my superman book, and then I took a little nap (the only way I could keep my mind of my stomach ache)!

Once we got to the base of the mountain, we had to switch to another bus that would take us up the long winding road to the Eagles Nest! Pretty fun ride on the way up, plus as an added bonus, HBW was clinging to my arm the whole time!

We arrived at the top in about 10 minutes, and once there we departed the bus and headed down a long cold tunnel in the mountain to an elevator that took us up to the Nest.

We had to pack in the lift like we were a bunch of sardines. Not a very nice experience, but I had to see this place so I sucked it up!

It was beautiful up there. Spectacular view! Here are some photo’s!

Anyhow, it only took us about 20 minutes to view the entire compound. It’s not a very large place, hence being called a “Nest”. Nice comforting nest.

After that we crammed back on the elevator and headed back down to the tunnel, and marched our way out and back onto the bus. The ride down the mountain is even better than the drive up! It’s like a roller coaster ride with all the twists and turns and 20 + degree downhill roads. I loved it! Of course HBW was frightened out of her mind the whole trip down.

Once back down, we got back on our tour bus and headed to some town that I’ve forgotten the name of to eat lunch. I think it was called Berchtesgaden, but I’m not sure. Anyway, HBW and I both had the mushroom goulash, which was pretty darn tasty. Unfortunately I was still sick to my stomach, so while in the town we stopped by an Apoteek (drug store), and picked some medicine up. The pharmacist gave me two things to take. One was “natural” for my stomach, and the other was a man-made concoction for my intestines. The pharmacist was a typical square-jawed tough German too. He stated “You vill take 2 off dez, and den you vill take some drops of zees, and den yu vill feel bettah”! I must admit I rather enjoyed taking the natural stuff, because it tasted sour and went down (slow burning) just like a shot of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey! The other stuff was kind typical American medicine. Just 2 pills down the hatch with a glass of water. BORING! Finally some relief from my suffering!

After our little stay in the village, we hoped back on the bus, and headed back to Edelweiss. The pharmacist warned me that the pills for my intestines were going to make me sleepy, but dammit if I wasn’t knocked out as soon as the bus driver started the engine! Germans don’t f*** around when it comes to medicine!

About 2 hours into the trip, I woke up suddenly with a stabbing pain in my intestines. This was it, this was the moment I had been painfully waiting for all day. It was time to destroy some porcelain. I got out of the seat and ever so quickly moved to the back of the bus where the crapper was located. I whipped the door open almost knocking the guy out in the seat next to the john, I squeezed into the little compartment, dropped trow, and lit that sucker up! It was so bad, I almost died in my own arms!

Thank the Lord Jesus Christ, hallelujah it was over,...AMEN! I felt AWESOME! It’s as if I had past the Diarrhea Crucible, and now there was nothing on Gods green Earth that could stop me. As far as I was concerned, I was now immortal!

I popped open the bus outhouse door, looked at the guy I nearly killed with it before and we both grinned at each other. It was truly one of those “Pal, I know how you feel, welcome to the club” moments! I quickly moved on back to my seat, where I plopped down, looked over at HBW and said “It is done”. I then broke out my Superman Returns book and proceeded to finish it. Afterwards, I took another nap, and woke up when we arrived back at the Lodge.

All in all (besides feeling like I was going to die all day), not a bad touristy day!

Day 4 - Touristy Trip to Northern Italy

2006-07-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

Again, this is one of those touristy things HBW had set in stone before we came to Edelweiss! Not a bad selection either, if I may say. It turned out to be a fantastic trip, but if you’re pregnant it can be a bit much at times. I hate to say it, but I ended up being sick to my stomach again. Although not nearly as bad as the day before, thank God!

Anyhow, we had to get up at the butt-crack of dawn again to make sure me made the 730 bus out of town. This trip was so packed they had to have two busses pick all of us up. Admittedly I was a bit skeptical that this was going to be a joyful experience at first because of all the children that were being lugged around. After all, this trips big theme was a wine tasting in the village of Vipiteno! When it’s something like that, you’d think it would pretty much be an adult tour, but no the kids were dragged along. Honestly, the lodge provides daycare, and it’s most likely cheaper than paying for the kids to get a bus ticket!

Whatever though, HBW and I ended up on the second bus which was a good thing, because it appeared most of the clans with the screaming meanies was getting onto the first bus. GOOD SHEEP!

We only ended up with about 5 children on our bus, and unlike the monsters on the first bus, the parents on our bus were actually responsible and made sure their kids bothered no-one!

It was only about a 2 hour drive out to Italy, so it was much more suited for a human like me with a digestive system of a squirrel, and a pregnant human like my babe! About an hour in, the guide came over the bus intercom, and told us we were going to be making a pit-stop at a McDonalds for an eating and bathroom break. I could hear the whole bus whispering to themselves “McDonalds?... What the hell, I didn’t come to Europe for that”! I said to a couple of the people around me “It’s nothing like the Micky D’s back in the States”. They seemed skeptical, until they stepped foot inside the restaurant. Then they were like “Holy S*** this is nice”! You see McDonalds in the States knows we’ll buy just about anything, up to and including a bucket of crap, but the Europeans won’t deal with any of that nonsense! Europeans already have fantastic restaurants and two hour lunch breaks, so why do they need to stop by some fast-food slum. So McDonalds had to shape up or get out of dodge! McDonalds in Europe is still fast food, but the pace of eating is slower, employees are friendlier (even if they don’t all speak English, which by the way most do) the restaurants are spick and span and they don’t look like they’re made of plastic (note to readers, not all McDonalds in Europe are like this, but for the most part what I’ve seen they’re 110% better than what we’re given in the States).

Anyway, we stayed for about a half an hour before we jettisoned to our next location. Ah, Vipiteno Italy, what a place!

Actually it’s really Austria. The land was given to Italy after Austria lost The Great War. It’s kind of an oddity really. Everything is written in Italian, but the people all speak german!

Well, we all got off the bus, and our guide gave us a quick overview of the town before me went to the wine tasting. The wine that I tasted was quite nice, but having two busloads of people crammed into this little shop just plain sucked! HBW and I split off from the group and went looking in the basement for some wine to purchase (we usually try to grab a couple bottles of locally made wine from the areas we visit). I picked out a merlot and a cabernet while HBW picked out some champagne, and we both agreed to buy three bottles of moscatto. We love that stuff! Since we had an hour all to ourselves, HBW and I really split from the group and went marching all over the town like good touristy humans! I stopped by a shop a couple blocks from the wine place, and picked up a nice Italian leather wallet! Just in time too, because my old wallet was falling apart! We snooped around the town for about another hour before heading back to the bus.

Everybody packed back on the busses, and we were whisked off to Reifenstein Castle. The castle was described in the brochure for this trip as “one of the oldest and best preserved medieval castles in Europe (complete with torture chamber)”! They had me at “torture”, so to me this was instantly placed on my MUST SEE list!

As far as the castle being “best preserved” it sure looked in shambles to me, but honestly I’ve got nothing to compare it too. You know, growing up in America we’ve just got a buttload of Medieval castles hanging around to compare it to!

The trip up to the castle was torture itself. It was at least a 15 minute hike up a 16% incline. I didn’t think HBW was going to make it. I honestly thought our son was going to pop out of her on the way up! But, she’s an amazing women and she held Clint inside and made it up to the top with me. Since there was two busloads of people inside this medium sized castle, HBW and I stayed back from the group! I didn’t really want to hear what the guide had to say about the place anyway. I’ve seen Lord of the Rings, I know what it’s all about! Besides nobody likes pictures of inanimate objects with a glob of people in it that you don’t know! We kept trekking behind the group and taking pictures along the way, until we got to the top where the torture chamber was located. Actually the chamber is below, they just only allow it to be viewed from where they would cast their victims in! I basically plowed through people to get in before anybody else! Not because “I HAD TO GET IN”, but because they said as soon as you get in and out, you could go back down to the bus. HBW wanted to go back down to the bus “right now”, so I had to rush in and get my fix of the chamber! It was sweet, and everything I’d hoped it would be! They’d tie a guy up with rope and then drop him into this pit that was at least 30 feet deep, and then let him dangle there for 7 days! If he or she lived they’d set them free, if they died,... well they were still free!

The walk down was much easier than the walk up, thankfully. HBW and I got back on the bus and took a little 10 minute nap before everyone else arrived and started making a lot of noise. We were then shuttled off to the Burgfrieden Restaurant for lunch. We were starving by this point, so we were glad to be here. Unfortunately the meal wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Basically the restaurant has a deal with the Lodge, so they get all their business from us touristy folk. They had a very limited menu, so HBW and I chose the “house special lasagna”! Hey we’re in Italy right? MUST TRY LASAGNA! Unfortunately the lasagna sucked! It was tasteless and boring! Everybody else in the restaurant was like “ummm, oh, emmmm this is so great”, and HBW and I were like “the Stouffers Party Size Lasagna we buy from the commissary is better than this crap”! We just ate our food, paid our bill and then walked outside. The tasteless slime of the lasagna was still on my tongue and I had to get it off, so I popped out a cigar and started puffing away. Making sure I got maximum smoke in the kitchen,...my special little way of letting them know that the meal sucked! I mean honestly, if you’re going to call it the “house special”, dammit that stuff better be special! I should have known better, because technically it’s still Austria and not Italy!

Oh well, after that disaster of a meal we all packed back on the busses like good sheep and headed to yet another village. By this time HBW was pretty much beat, as was I. We just kind of wanted to go back to the lodge, but we sucked it up and kept on truckin’!

We arrived in Brixen where we were let loose for an hour all to ourselves to do whatever we wanted provided we keep our activities within the laws of the land! HBW and I just decided to chill out in this town. We stopped by a little corner shop and had some gallato (italian ice creme)! I got mint chocolate chip, and HBW got vanilla with pistachio! Yummy for my flavor, but I about barfed when HBW made me taste a bit of her pistachio! Pistachio is like my Kryptonite! It kills me (something that I think pregnant HBW has been trying unsuccessfully for the past seven or so months)! After the gallato, my stomach went all out letting me know it was time expel some sewage! We walked calmly but briskly to the public toilet.

It was a futuristic toilet. Sort of Art Deco, or even better yet, something straight out of an IKEA catalog. Anyhow, you put your 30 euro-cents in the machine and the futuristic Star Trek door slides open. You walk in and the door whooshes shut (picture the old Star Trek doors opening and closing sounds). I expected the bathroom to be all clean and awesome inside, but unfortunately it was a nightmare! Poop and pee everywhere! I had to go, so I just sort of squatted without touching anything and did my business, which turned out to be nothing! I couldn’t do it! I was so grossed out, I just pulled my pants back up and got the hell out of there! Self-cleaning futuristic toilet my ASS! As bad as I had to go I just held it in! What a waste of 30 euro-cents! As soon as I got out of there I wiped myself down with one of HBW’s sanitary wipes (lemon scented). I got my whole body from head to toe (including my butt-cheeks, but I’ll not explain how I did that)!

After that painful hour was up, we boarded the bus yet again, and headed out for our last stop of the day. It was a Fruit and Vegetable market in Brenner. I could care less about seeing a farmers market (we’ve got plenty of those in the NL), I just wanted to find a crap-box and fast! As soon as the bus got there, I bolted for the bathrooms. I was the first in there, which at first I thought was great, but after some a**hole tried kicking in the door to my stall I didn’t think so. And yes, the door was kicked! I had been on the can for maybe 20 seconds and then WHAM, a boot in the door. I was like WTF as half the crap in my body fell into the toilet! It literally scared half the shit right out of me! I was livid to say the least. I got off the can, pulled my trow up and whipped the door open and shouted “Who’s the F***ing A**hole”? All the other guys in line pointed to the stall next to mine. I was going to kill that S.O.B. when he came out of his stall, but it turns out it was one of the evil little children from the first bus! Argh! I just stormed out of the bathroom pissed that I couldn’t punch anybody out for this deed! That little devils father wasn’t even around! Go figure! I just waited outside till everybody was done, and then I went back upstairs to the bathroom and completed what I had started in peace!

After the Fruit-market that I didn’t care to see, we drove back here to Edelweiss where HBW and I got some supper and now we’re going to bed. All in all, I think today was pretty awesome!

Day 5 - Another Jug Relaxation Vacation Day

2006-07-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

Today we did nothing! Well nothing touristy that is. If they were to make a TV show about our day today, it would be call Seinfeld! Absolutely NOTHING! In most cases this would be sacrilege on an HBW “vacation”, but after our last two extremely busy days we were due for a day off.

We slept in till 11:30! Thats super late by HBW’s standards. For mine, well it’s sort of early.

Anyhow today was our day for massages! We were both excited about this. Not just because the last two days were rough on us, but because this was also the first time we were getting a professional massage!

We walked downstairs to the bath and spa hut with an air of excitement in our steps. We checked in with the front desk, and they gave us some medical paperwork to fill out. You know, stuff like do you have diabetes, heart problems, allergies to oil and so forth. The funniest part was at the top, just after date of birth (why they need to know my date of birth is besides me), it asks your occupation! I just busted out as I scratched down “RETIRED”! HBW wasn’t amused.

Anyhow, after the masseuse was done preparing a room for me she called me back. By this time HBW was off elsewhere getting her massage. I stepped into the semi-lit room, where the lady told me to strip down to a comfortable level. I went as far as my undies. I figured she wouldn’t be rubbing all up on my cheeks so I’d leave em on. Now if I was getting the full full, really full body massage, then I would have ripped them off. Anyhow, I was getting the Swedish Hot-rock Massage! It was awesome! I just laid on my belly, and the masseuse just started working her magic! She spent almost an hour on my back before turning over to my arms. The stones felt great too. She started using them towards the end of the back portion of my massage. She rubbed each stone over a certain portion of my back, and then placed it in a certain spot before covering it up and moving to a different part of my back with another stone. She repeated this process, until my back was completely full with hot rocks and covered. She left it covered while she proceeded to massage my legs. After my legs were done, she uncovered my back and removed the stones. Ah, so refreshing! She had me roll over onto my back, where she began to massage both my arms. After that I was feeling pretty rubbery, and my time was up. Only an hour of bliss, but most certainly well worth the 60 bucks!

Afterwards HBW and I met up in-front of the Hotel Starbucks to exchange our stories of pleasure. Then we went down to the garage, got in our car and took off for the AAFES exchange a couple blocks away. We could have walked it, but like I said before, it’s a lazy day. I sure as hell wasn’t going to walk after that kind of pampered blissful treatment. We stopped off at the Subway on that post for lunch and then came back to the lodge where we took a little nap!

When we woke up, HBW and I went downstairs again to go swimming. We were hoping this time, since we were going a bit earlier that the swarms of little kids wouldn’t be down there. We were right! Only a couple of children were about. For once, the adults outnumber the children! We had a good swim, and then went back up to the room for another nap!

After this little nap, we went to Zuggy’s, a nice little restaurant in the basement of the building just across from the pool. We had a pizza with pepperoni, mushroom, and meatballs! It was awesome, and we stuffed ourselves!

Now, we’re back in our cozy little room chilling out. We’re both outside sitting on the balcony overlooking the gorgeous mountains! I’m typing away and HBW’s playing Finding Nemo on my Nintendo DS. Yet another fantastic vacation day!

Day 6 - Touristy Trip to Neuschwanstein Castle (a.k.a. The Disney Castle)

2006-07-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

After our last two touristy trips, HBW wasn’t sure she wanted to go on this one. You heard right, The Iron-fisted Touristy Wife actually wanted to cut one of her reserved trips out of the “schedule”!

For once I surprised even myself. I quickly said “We can’t do that hun, you’ll never forgive yourself if we miss this opportunity”! I couldn’t believe those words came out of my mouth! I mean come on, I’m the lazy vacation guy, not the touristy fellow!

Well, it turned out that this was the best and quickest tour of all of them. It was slower paced, started later in the morning and ended earlier in the afternoon. The other tours were hard on HBW. Although they were nice, they started early and always ended late in the evening. Plus the other two tours were ultra fast paced, a kind of get in and get out and on to the next portion of the tour! That pace just wasn’t suitable for our current status as a couple.

We departed the Lodge a little after 8:30 this morning. HBW got us front row seats on the bus! That was awesome, considering they’re the only seats my long legs fit in comfortably. Another great thing about this trip, is I had no more pain in my stomach! Nobody sat behind us either, so HBW and I could also tip back our seats a bit too! Very relaxing bus trip!
The drive out to the Castle was actually short too. Well, short compared to our last two tours anyhow. This was only about an hour and a half drive versus a 4 hour and 2 and a half hour drive with the other two tours.

Our trip to the castle was going oh so well, when about 3 quarters of the way to our destination a gentleman came running up to the front of the bus screaming for a plastic bag that his daughter could use to barf into. Apparently their child gets sick when on buses, and somehow they just happened to be unprepared. Well, needless to say the little girl stunk up the bus with her vomit. It almost made HBW yak. In fact, even though I’m always put on vomit clean-up duty at our house because I’m practically immune to the stench, I too about lost my cookies! Thankfully we were almost to our destination and we wouldn’t have to put up with it much longer, or so we thought.

When we were about five minutes away from our destination the tour guide came over the bus intercom and explained to us all options available to us to get up to the Castle. There is about a mile and a half of trekking up a steep winding road to get to the top! Our options were (a) hike it (b) pay for another tour bus to take us up, or (c) get on a horse carriage to get up!
Well, option (a) was dropped off our list of ways to get up. There’s no way in hell HBW was going to make it all the way up that mountain in time to catch our tour! Option (b) sounded comforting but HBW and I both decided we’d had enough of buses, so that option was stamped out pretty quick. So, we chose option (c). We got off the bus walked over to the line of horse taxi’s, paid the man and crammed into the front seat of the buggy and were on our way up the mountain.

It wasn’t so bad at first, but the the two horses started busting ass! I thought my bombs were bad, but their flatulence were A-bombs! It just wouldn’t end! We were literally “putting up the mountain”! About a quarter of the way up the horses suddenly stopped! The operator of the carriage started to hit the horses with his little whip thing! It broke, and the horses still wouldn’t move. Then all of a sudden, the horse on the right took a huge dump! I about passed out from the smell! Instead of dying in my own arms like I almost did to myself a couple of days prior, I was about to die in HBW’s arms. Thats how bad it stank! As soon as the “drop off” was finished, the horses started pulling us up the trail. Now, just because the horse pooped didn’t mean the farts stopped. Oh no, it got worse! Why you ask? Because his buddy to the left of him started to let em rip too! It was so damn nasty! We were halfway up the mountain, and the horses stopped again. I said to myself “Here it comes”! I thought the horse on the right didn’t get all of it out of his system the first go around, so I was positive that this time I was going to die in HBW’s arms! Well, I was completely wrong! Thankfully! The horse on the left wasn’t gonna let his buddy on the right get all the glory, so he dropped off his poop too! This time two Chinese girls squished on the other side of HBW got a waft of horse poop in their nostrils. I’m almost positive that one of them passed out. After the horse did it’s thing, we were on our merry way up the trail, still putting along. It took about 20 or so minutes to get up to the top, and boy was I glad when it was over. I had had enough of stinky odors for the day!

We made our way up to the gate of the castle where we waited a short time before our group was called in for the tour! I got quite a few shots of the outside of the castle, but sadly we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the castle. I was so annoyed at this. I understand they want to preserve all the paintings that are painted on the walls of the castle interior, but come on just have everybody turn their flashes off. I know that you’ll always get the jackass who’ll leave his flash on and take a picture, but the easy way to fix that is fine him for doing so. People get the point after they’ve got to cough up their hard earned dough! It’s that simple! But no, sadly no pictures of the inside,... period! It’s a damn shame too, because it is absolutely marvelous inside! The walls are painted with all the lore of the land, and the ornate wood carvings were amazing! There aren’t enough words to describe this castles beauty. I don’t even think it should be called a castle either. It doesn’t fit the word at all. A castle is a hardened fortification, a sort of last option defense against enemy invaders. This “castle” would crumble to dust if it were hit with one well aimed cannon shot! Really it would! More than anything else it’s a work of art!

You can understand why all the villagers of the land thought Ludwig the 2nd was an insane man, and eventually wanted to kill him! He built this wondrous work of art during a time in Europe when everybody hated whoever didn’t speak the same tongue, and invasions could come on a whim! Instead of building something practical, he did the exact opposite! After seeing this “castle”, I fully agree with the villagers. He was a few cards shy of a full deck! After all, mental illness runs in the family, and this guys brother Otto was a nut-case! Then again, no artist is ever really appreciated in his own time.

When we were done touring Neuschwanstein Castle, HBW and I started walking the mile and a half back down the mountain. It’s always easier walking down than up! The great part about this tour was the long times given to do whatever we wanted. No rush at all. We took or sweet time walking down to the town below. Once there, HBW and I went to a restaurant and ate Venison Goulash with Dumplings. The bill was pretty steep, but the food was well worth the price!

After lunch I had a cigar, while HBW scoped out some of the gift shops in the town. We met up in a little park across from the restaurant, and then walked over to the tour bus to leave for our next destination.

When we got on the bus to head out it still smelled a bit nasty from the vomit, but it wasn’t as bad as when we got off. What’s more is the family with the barf girl stole our front row seats. I was a bit peeved at this, but I did the good christian thing and moved on. The only open seats available to us were seats in the third row. There were other open seats, but none that were side by side, so that I could sit next to my Hot Babe Wife! We plopped down in row three, and got settled. The tour guide came on the bus and just looked at the family that was now in our assigned seats, and told them “Um, remember the assigned seats”? They just looked at her all dumbfounded. She shot back a look that said “Jackass Americans”! Because of their little switch deed without asking, the guide had to do a recount of the people on the bus to make sure we had everyone,... which we didn’t. We happened to be missing three people. She was pissed! It’s not like we didn’t have enough time to loaf around the town being touristy. She gave us THREE HOURS! We waited another fifteen minutes for these 3 humans to show up before she made the bus driver circle the small town looking for anyone chasing the bus! The whole time the guide on the bus was saying angrily to the driver “Look, the Germans are all waiting for their bus, the Italians are all onboard theirs, this is just typical”! Meaning typical jackass american behavior. And her point was proven as we pulled back up to the front of the town, where the three jackass americans were standing holding a ton of shopping bags, with a look of amazement as the bus passed them ever so slowly. They just STOOD THERE! They didn’t try to run to the bus! They just stood there waiting to be picked up! When it was clear that the bus driver wasn’t going to have any of their crap and crept farther and farther away, they decided to run! Then when they got on the bus they were all huffy puffy that they weren’t pampered for being late getting to the bus! America, always sending it’s best diplomats! Right!

Anyhow, after our nice 20 minute delay thanks to spend happy soldiers wives taking their sweet ass time, we made our way to Wieskirche. It’s a pilgrims church of the Baroque and Rococo style dating back to the 1700’s. I could have cared less what style it was. When we got to the church, I just stared in amazement. It was beautiful.

We were going to this church to see a sculpture of Jesus Christ that a couple of monks made back in medieval days. As soon as we walked in, we knew this was not going to happen. A couple were being married today! If I thought the outside looked cool, the inside almost knocked me on my butt! They painted the flat wooden ceiling of the church to look like a dome! It worked! It was the perfect optical illusion!

The statues of the saints all around the inside were awesome too! Sadly, we didn’t get to see the wood carving of Jesus. We were shooed away.

We all packed back on the bus like good sheep, and went 20 minutes down the road to a wood carving store. I was excited to go in and look at all the stuff, and maybe purchase something! Sadly, everything was a bit out of our price range. Actually it was WAY OUT OF OUR PRICE RANGE! Boo Hoo for HBW and I. Anybody have a violin?

HBW and I just got back on the bus and waited for everybody to pile back on and head back to the Lodge (and yes it still reeked of yak). We just took a nap the whole way back, which was only about 30 minutes. I know I said it’s an hour and half out to the castle, but the tour is set up in a loop. You go all the way out to the castle, then loop back and hit up all the other touristy stuff on the way back. Therefore giving you the illusion that the trip back was faster, when in all actuality it was longer.

Anyhow, as soon as HBW and I got back to the lodge we marched up the stairs, went into the room, and crashed on the beds for a 2 hour nap. I felt refreshed when I woke up.

We were pretty hungry by this time, so we went down to Zuggy’s again for our dinner. We had meatball subs, and they were pretty good. Better than Subway anyhow. The only problem was that the waitress kept giving us this funny look every time she came to our table. HBW and I just looked at each other dumbfounded, thinking the same thing “What the hell is up with her”?

Oh we found out as soon as we opened the door to our lodge room! IT REAKED OF BARF! Which meant WE REAKED OF BARF! Which meant WE SAT IN THE SEAT THE KID BARFED IN! Which meant THOSE F***ING A**HOLES STOLE OUR SEATS BECAUSE THEY KNEW WHAT THEIR CHILD DID IN THEIR FORMER SEATS AND DIDN’T TELL US! (We had the yak smell on us since we had gotten back on the bus after the castle tour. We had been stewing in it for so long we couldn’t tell we smelled of it!)

I was livid! I hadn’t been this pissed off in ages. Even though I try to be the best christian man I can be and follow all the teachings of Jesus Christ, I let sin get the best of me! I’m not going to go over everything I shouted word for word as I stomped around the room. But I’ll have you know a whole lot of F-bombs were dropped, quite a few Mother F’s were thrown about, some “I’m gonna kill that Son of a B**** if I see him” were unleashed, and to add on to the pile of words I’ll be judged for, I let loose a couple of G**D***’s! Yeah, I knew I had a psychotic moment when I look at HBW and saw her jaw hanging to the ground, and her eyes just following me as I paced the room in utter rage!

HBW got in the bath as soon as I was done losing my mind, and after her I jumped in the shower and scrubbed off three times. Afterwards, I gathered up all the cloths and we headed down to the laundry room.

On the way down guess who I found? You got it, A**hole and his wife, sucking on a cigarette! I gave HBW the cloths I was carrying, and marched out to confront their rude a**es! HBW told me not to do anything stupid, which after my meltdown I could understand her worries.

I walked up to them and said very angrily “Hey, thanks for embarrassing my wife and I”! “Thanks for telling my wife and I we were sitting in the seat your child barfed in”! “What a way to thank us for stealing our seats”!

They were speechless at first, and then the excuses poured in. I’ve never heard so many come so fast, and I’ve heard some whopper of excuses.

The wife laid out the first excuse. It went something like “Oh, that can’t be so, that was a different bus that we got back on after the castle tour”!

I shot that bulls*** right out of the water with “Oh, did a new bus just magically appear after we toured the Disney Castle”?
Again, a dumbfounded look. Then the next excuse rolled off the husbands tongue. “Well, we weren’t sitting in those seats, we were in the second row”!

I replied, “Oh, you mean the one’s behind us that were empty”? WRONG TRY AGAIN!

Yet another excuse rolled right off his tongue. “No, No she held it until I got the bag and ran back”

I thought to myself while he was shooting off this one, “you show me a kid that can hold their barf until a bag is presented to them, and I’ll show you a man who can play pick-up-sticks with his butt-cheeks”! Instead I said “So if she got it all in the bag, then why does my wife and I smell like your child’s yak”!

They replied “We don’t know, but she (their child) did get some on her pants”

Ah finally we’re making progress. I said back “So now not all of it made it into the bag, so there is a good possibility that some also missed the bag and got onto the seat”?

He replied, “No, absolutely not”

“No, absolutely not” I said back, “your positive about this”? “That wouldn’t happen to be the reason you stole our seats, now would it”?

He made his fatal mistake. “I don’t see how it would matter if she did, it SHOULD have been dry by the time we got back on the bus”!

GOTCHA! It was clear though that I wasn’t dealing with real adults here. They just didn’t get it. “Um, ok well obviously it wasn’t dry, otherwise I wouldn’t be out here having this little chit-chat” I retorted!

That’s when I was accused! I was accused by the wife of being angry at a 7 year old girl. I about punched her lights out when she did this to me. “You have no right to come out here yelling at us and being angry at a 7 year old girl”

Actually, I hadn’t yelled a single word at them yet, but that was about to change real fast. I shouted back “You don’t get it, I could care less if your little girl barfed”! “It happens, but what I’m mad about is you sat in our seats that YOU stole, and watched us sit in a seat that your daughter barfed all over”!

I couldn’t lay it out any clearer for them. I was basically asking them to take responsibility for their actions and the grief it had caused. They just couldn’t comprehend! I wasn’t dealing with adults, I was officially dealing with narrow minded pee brained rude-a** Yankees(jacka** northerners)!

Instead of getting an apology, I was hit with the mother of all excuses. He said “Well man that sucks that you’ve got to do your laundry and smelled like barf all day, but it wasn’t my daughters”, “I think it was the black guy and his little girl sitting behind you”!

WTF! For once I was speechless. I just stood there staring at him, for what must have been an eternity. If I would have stood there any longer not saying anything, I would have turned into HE-MAN Master of the Universe and Prince of ETERNIA!

All I could somehow force myself to do was shake my head from side to side, and then say to them “thanks for your time”, and walk away. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. That “black guy” sitting behind us was not rude at all, in fact he was one if the nicest people I’ve spoken to since being here. His “little girl” had been a perfect angel all day! Not a single annoying peep from her, and she most certainly wasn’t the one who BARFED ON THE BUS!

After walking back into the hotel, I went to the front desk and explained my problem. I asked them if they could get room service up to our room immediately to remove all the sheets we had taken a nap on. Now mind you, by this time it was already 2100. She said it wouldn’t be a problem, and everything would be taken care of by a half an hour. Perfect! It would be ready for us just when our laundry would be finished.

We walked in the room, and finally no more BARF smell! This Hotel/Lodge is awesome! They don’t mess around when something goes wrong, they just get the task at hand completed. HBW just put the laundry away, and hopped into bed, and I started typing for my blog.

This was the best tour trip out of the three that we’d done so far. I’ve tried not to let this situation ruin my experience of this trip, but it has. I can’t stop thinking about it. How could anybody be so rude? Don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical!

Day 7 - Jug’s Ultra Relaxation Day

2006-07-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

Well, there was quite a bit to blog about yesterday, so I didn’t hit the hay until about 0230 or so. Even then I stayed up a bit more playing Super Mario 64 on my Nintendo DS Lite.

I didn’t get out of bed today until 1300. I would have felt bad, but HBW went to bed at about 2100 last night, and didn’t get out of bed until noon today. What she did is called “sleeping in”. That’s not however why I got up so late. I just didn’t get up early because I didn’t get to bed early.

Anyhow, we didn’t do too much today. Just took our sweet time loafing about the whole day. As soon as we were all showered up, we hopped in the car and took off for Subway on the post a couple blocks away. We’ve eaten there, not because we love Subway Subs, but because although in dollars it’s expensive, it does happen to be cheaper than anything sold at the lodge and out in town. Even though we’ve planned and saved for this trip for a long time, we’re still tight on money. You know how it goes. We’re young and full of life, but very little money. It’s sort of a trade off I suppose. When you’re young you can do everything but have no money to do it, and when you’re old you’ve got money but you can’t do anything! Oh well.

So after our lunch we came back to the lodge and loafed around a bit more. After wandering aimlessly for a while, we came back to our room and snuggled for a bit before deciding to go downstairs for a swim.

On the way down to the pool we decided to stop off at the Tour Shop to pick up some information about child care for a couple from our church that are going to be coming to this lodge in a month or so. While there, we decided to book ourselves a horse carriage ride through the village of Garmish. It was only 17 bucks each, so we figured what the heck why not! The ride through town wasn’t until 1800, so we continued with our earlier plan of swimming for a bit.

After booking our tour for the day, we went downstairs to the swimming pool. As soon as we got downstairs we were greeted by the gleeful screaming of children. My excitement level plummeted. I didn’t want to go swimming with a whole bunch of screaming kids. HBW said she’d peek around the corner of the Starbucks to see if the pool was loaded with little tikes. She came back and said “No, it’s just a few”. I breathed a sigh of relief, and figured the screams must have been coming from the arcade just across the way.

We went into the pool area, and spit off to our separate locker rooms before meeting back at the pool! As I was walking to the pool guess who I saw? That’s right, the a**hole from the night before. I just smiled at him and said “How you doin”, and walked over to the deep end. I got in the pool after HBW jumped in. We swam around for about 5 minutes when I noticed the a**hole had left. Guess he didn’t want to be around the man that called him out on his rudeness. Oh well, his loss.

HBW and I swam around for about another half and hour before getting out and heading back up to our room to eat the rest of our Subs from lunch. We snuggled for a bit more before getting ready to go on our horse ride through town.

Here’s a picture of the horses and buggy!

It was a pretty fun ride through town. Garmish isn’t a very large village, so it only took us about 45 minutes or so. It wasn’t really a tour, so we didn’t learn anything about the town. We just went around looking at all the neat houses and their paintings. It was a pleasant Sunday activity. When we got back to the Lodge, HBW and I both went downstairs and had supper. We only intended to go down and have a piece of carrot cake, but we ended up getting the whole meal. I’m not complaining.

Anyhow, tomorrow is our last day here at Edelweiss. I think we’re going to walk downtown to do some touristy shopping in the morning. Sounds a bit boring to me, but I think HBW is gonna like it. After all, it’s her idea! I think even if we sleep in again, HBW is gonna make us go downtown anyway tomorrow. Oh well, we’ll see. Time for bed!

Day 8 - Our Final Day At The Lodge

2006-07-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

Nothing too special about this day. Just making final preparations for or journey home tomorrow.

We both slept in again today, although not as late as we did yesterday. This time we both got up around 11. We went to the Subway again today for lunch, and I’ve got to tell you, I’m a bit sick of eating subs now. We really have no alternative though. It’s the cheapest food around here.

After lunch, HBW and I decided to catch the local bus to downtown Garmish. We could have walked, but HBW being all huge and everything, we just figured this was our best and cheapest option. Not all that bad of a ride on the bus. It was a bit hot inside, but we only had to ride in it for about five minutes anyway.

We got off in the middle of the Centrum. It was super busy today! Huge masses of touristy humans like ourselves just buzzing in and out of all the local shops. We only went in a few of the shops, but pretty much we stuck to window shopping. It’s about the only shopping we can afford right now. About halfway through our trek through Garmish, HBW and I stopped off at an Italian Ice shop, and got us a couple of scoops of the good stuff! It was doubly nice eating it today, because it was sunny and hot!

Basically it’s a big loop through the centrum of Garmish. It doesn’t take too long to see everything, so we were finish within a couple of hours. When we were close to exiting the centrum, HBW spotted a Bavarian Christmas shop. She just had to go inside! I went inside, and walked right back out and had a cigar. That’s just too much Christmas for me, thank you! I waited about 20 minutes and then HBW popped out of the shop with a bag full of stuff. I think if she could afford it, she’d by the whole shop! HBW is really a holiday person. Good thing she married me, I can control her extreme holiday moments!
Anyhow, we decided not to take the bus back to the lodge and trekked back instead. It took us about a half an hour or so. Not bad time for a pregnant lady who can only walk like a penguin!

When we got back up to our lodge room, HBW took a nap and I started playing on my Nintendo DS. I played until I got completely pissed off that I couldn’t beat a level. I just shut the machine off and woke HBW up. TIME FOR A SWIM!

We wanted to get one last swim in before we headed back to the Netherlands. It was really nice today because there was hardly any children at the pool! We swam for a good 45 minutes before deciding to get out. This time we didn’t go straight back to the room. We decided today we’d go outside and get in the spa! Oh the water was nice and warm. The pumps were making all the water bubbly too! It was really nice and relaxing. I almost fell asleep just sitting there being bubble massaged!

By the time we got back up to the room it was getting close to supper time, so we got all dried off and switched into nicer drier cloths! We decided today we’d go to the buffet downstairs. It was “Bavarian Food” night! Not that I hadn’t gotten enough bavarian food while here.

It was a pretty nice meal. I definitely got my 14.95’s worth! Or so I thought. You see after you’re done eating you put your trays inside one of these cart thingies ( I have no other way to explain what it looks like), and when they’re full, the staff removes them and puts an empty one back, ready to take more trays.

Well, it just so happens that one of them was being removed and bussed right past our table! Can you guess what happens? Yeah, a plate full of goulash fell off the top of the cart, landed on my lap and then the dish exploded upon impact with the ground.

I WAS NOT A HAPPY HUMAN! If I were a superhero my name would be SHIT-MAGNET, attractor of all B.S.!

HBW just looked at me as I became extremely red with the fury fires brewing within me! I wanted to get up and start smashing that workers head in with the tray that was now next to me! I just saw HBW shaking her head “NO” at me! She knew what I was thinking about doing.

The worker was just running about saying “Oh my God, I’m so sorry... I’m so sorry”! I kept looking at HBW and not moving, while everybody else in the restaurant was staring at me without moving! I’m sure they were all thinking “Is he or isn’t he going to do it” The waiter was still running around frantically “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God”!

I took a deep breath in. Everybody around me just kind of pushed themselves back in their seats. I exhaled and said politely “Hey pal, how bout you go fetch me a wet rag so I can clean myself off”. Everybody around us just breathed a sigh of relief. The worker said shakily “Oh yeah, sorry, I’ll get that for you ... sorry ... give me a second”!

Not that the wet rag was going to do any good. I knew my pants were ruined, but the irrational side of my brain figured if I could get to it before it set in, the stuff might all wash off in the washing machine. I wiped as best I could before chucking the now soiled rag on the table. The worker kept saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”. I was getting tired of it, and by this time my rage had quelled and I just looked at him dead in the eyes and said “It’s ok bud, shit happens, so stop worrying about it”! He didn’t say anything else to me after that.

Everybody just stared at HBW and I was we walked to the front of the restaurant. I’m not sure whether it was in pure amazement that a big mean looking guy like myself didn’t start pounding on the worker, or that I was walking around with a huge stain all over my pants. A stain with the color of poop by the way.

As I walked to the front I saw the hostess. I said to her “I want to speak with a manager”! She just gave me the “Oh S***” look. She jetted off looking for the manager and came back to us and said “give me a minute, I couldn’t find him so I’m going to call someone”! She jumped on the phone and as soon as someone on the other end picked up she said “I need the manager, I’ve got a guy here that wants to speak to him and he looks pissed”!

In about five seconds the manager was there. I shook his hand as he came up to me. He too gave me the “Oh S***” look. I explained the situation to him, he said he was sorry too. Boy was I tired of hearing that line. He then refunded our meals. Not that the amount added up to what I paid for my slacks! I had just had enough, so I excepted the managers deal. Honestly, I just didn’t want to stand around anymore with what appeared (to anyone else that didn’t know what happened) to be a s*** stain on my pants!

HBW and I walked down to the laundry room and started to wash my stuff. While the machine was going, we went upstairs and got some directions home at the internet cafe. If it were up to me I’d leave right now, but HBW was right and that I should really get a good nights sleep. So, after that we went back down to the laundry room and moved my stuff from the washer to the drier. I had a crisp fresh one dollar bill just burning a hole in my pocket, so I suggested to HBW that we go put it in one of the slot machines and try to win some cash to pay for this vacation. She said “Oh, OK”! We walked over to the little gambling room and found a machine that we wanted to feed my one dollar bill to! It wouldn’t take it! We moved to a different machine! It wouldn’t take it either! We went to a whole bunch more machines. None of them excepted my George Washington! Just my luck right? Yeah thought so! I was annoyed, so we went back to the laundry room and sat around.

After my cloths were washed, and yes still stained, we went back upstairs and packed all of our stuff. We took it down to the garage and loaded it up in our car. Now all we have to do tomorrow is wake up, shower, get dressed, walk down a couple flights of stairs, get in the car and get the hell out of dodge!

Oh well, time to hit the hay. I’ve got an early day tomorrow.

Luxembourg-American-Friendship Week

2006-06-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

So, it’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything in my blog. I figured I’d take another extended brake from writing...again! Well, I’m feeling a bit refreshed and am ready to start writing on a regular basis...again. I’ve an incredible amount of stuff about me that I’d like to write about, but will have to wait for some other posts down the line.

There is something more urgent and important to write about in these next couple of posts! This week, HBW and I had an opportunity to meet with a handful of warriors her grandfather fought alongside during World War II! They were all warriors of Patton’s 3rd Cavalry Division.

We were invited to attend the Luxembourg-American-Friendship Week. It’s a reunion the country of Luxembourg hosts for the American Soldiers who liberated them from Nazi Germany!

It’s going to take me a while to put together a decent post, so please be patient. I want to make sure I get all the information and stories correct before publishing. In the meantime I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures from the trip.

-Jug

The Jug is Back!

2006-05-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m gonna steal an idea from Little Miss Chatterbox, and do a smorgasbord!

The Good News!

HBW and I were saved last Monday! It’s a pretty amazing experience! If you’ve been saved as well, than you understand what I mean! I’m not going to get into it anymore, because it’s too personal. What was said and done was between me and the big guy.

Pregnancy News

About a week ago, HBW and I went back to the hospital to get the 20 wk ultrasound! I find it absolutely fascinating that we’re able to see our child growing inside HBW! What’s more amazing is how much of a transformation has taken place since the week 12 ultrasound! It was so spectacular seeing the feet and the fingers, and the spine, but the ultimate is witnessing the heartbeat! It’s so OUTSTANDING!

The Tech asked us if we wanted to know what the sex of our baby was. HBW and I both said yes! We had a little wager going (that also happened to include my Mom and Dad) about what the sex of our child would be. HBW, my Mom and Dad all said it was a boy, and I said it was a girl!

The tech got all excited and said “Oh yeah, it’s definitely a BOY”! I had my hopes set that I’d get Daddy’s little girl! HBW said it looked like I’d been punched in the breadbasket when I heard it was a boy. I’ll admit I was a bit stunned! I wasn’t upset that I’m having a son, I’m pissed at my sperm for not following all their general orders! Fertilized egg, and give your master a GIRL!!! It’s ok though, because I’m sure that my soldiers will get many more chances to show where their loyalties lie!

Our son is very temperamental, and the Tech couldn’t get a good look at his face! Every time she would move the little controller over HBW’s belly our son would roll around and hide his face! After about 5 minutes or so, the Tech gave up and said that we’d have to come back in a couple of weeks to get another ultrasound!
I’m ok with that! I can’t wait to see my son again!

Breast Feeders Support Group

As I stated in my Infant Massage post, I was invited to the Breast Feeders Support Group. Well, I decided to go. I figured, heck why not I might learn something. Turns out, I was the only one that showed up! The lady the runs the group decided to give the class anyway. It was about father bonding. I watched a video (yes that old-school VHS stuff) and then we discussed different ways that I can help out and bond with my child. I guess fathers can often feel left out in the first couple of weeks after the child’s birth because the baby bonds more with the mother through breast feeding. I’ve never had a child before this, so I wouldn’t know. Guess I’ll find out if I feel left out after the birth.

Anyhow, after the class I mentioned something about the movie that struck a cord with the lady that runs the parenting programs (I’m gonna refer to her as Mrs. Parent). I said, “If they showed this movie to women that were dead set on assassinating their unborn child, they’d think twice”! We ended up staying an extra hour longer just discussing our ideologies (mainly mine). Mrs. Parent is definitely a liberal, and I’m positive that I came off as an ultra-conservative to her. Well, I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m ultra-conservative, but since living in this socialist hell Europe, I’d say I’ve become more conservative than what I once was.

A New Job

A while back (6 months ago) I applied for a cashier position at the Deca Commissary. On Monday, I received an email stating that I had been selected for the position. It kind of took me by surprise. The secretary at the base commissary sent me all the paperwork that I had to fill out by Wednesday. It’s a GS (government slavery) position, so I had to fill out a huge stack of papers for big brother, letting them know where I’ve lived, where I’ve traveled, and who knows me! It’s kind of silly, but I’ll do it because the job is better than what I currently have with AAFES Europe. Anyhow, yesterday I received another email from the secretary at Deca stating that all of the paperwork went through, and that I had a “Firm Job Offer”! Thank God! Decent pay for the work they’re asking for. Maybe if AAFES Europe understood this concept they could keep the decent employees.

I quit my AAFES job as of Friday. I can’t take working for this company any longer. It seems for the most part, that the management has no electricity running through it collective brain! I’m not going to say anymore at this time, but once my “Resignation” gets finalized (HR lady doesn’t come off of leave until Monday), I’ll tell you all about some of the stupid @#$% that AAFES Europe does.

Latest Read

It’s a rarity that I find a book that I like at the AAFES bookstore on base lately. I like non-fiction conservative books, but it seems as if AAFES only has LIEberal books. Titles like Bushworld, Are Men Necessary?, and anything by Al Franken! God forbid AAFES sell a book by Doug Giles or Dr. Adams. Guess I’ll have to go to Amazon.com, and give them my business. It’s sad that AAFES sells mainly liberal products to military personnel who happen to be mainly conservative! AAFES wonders why it’s sales suck over here!

(On a side note, AAFES stopped selling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas due to the “interactive sex mod” in the game, but allowed the sale of Brokeback Mountain which I’m told has a very steamy realistic sex scene between two men! Just another shining moment for AAFES)

Anyhow, in a rare moment I found a book that I was interested in. It’s called “His Excellency George Washington”!

I’m about a quarter of the way through it now, and can barely put it down. I like reading about our forefathers and what was going on in their minds. Also, this book brings His Excellency down to Earth. As legendary as George Washington is, he was and always will be a human. I’ve never realized how close our country came to an end during the revolutionary war! We really were on the brink of annihilation by the greatest army the earth had ever witnessed! George really was a crazy MFer for taking the British on! I’m not done with the book yet, but I’d recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about this awesome human being!

Sorry!

2006-04-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've been extremely busy lately, and still am. Lots and lots of things to do in so very little time has killed my bloggin' spirit. Please excuse the absence, and hopefully I'll be back writing next week. Again,...sorry!

Infant Massage Class

2006-04-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

So, I meant to write this the other day but was very exhausted and hit the hay early!

The other day, I attended “Nurturing Touch: Infant Massage” class provided by New Parent Education and Support Program on base.

I thought it was going to be a bit cooky, but surprisingly it was really interesting!

Usually you’re suppose to take the class after the child is born, but the lady running the program said she had extra dolls and that I should come anyway! I thought “what the heck”, and said “oh, ok” and attended the class!

Not an awful lot of people attended (which I suppose is a good thing)! I happened to be the only guy taking the class (I think I’m the first guy to ever take the class on base). All the ladies there were happy I was attending the class, and that made me feel a little more comfortable being there.

One of the ladies asked me “what do you want, a boy or girl”? I shot back really quick, “I want a girl, so I can have daddy’s little girl”! All the ladies were like “ahhh, thats cute” and had a chuckle!

Anyhow, when the class started we were all asked to sit in circle around the dolls. I ended up getting the only black doll to practice on. Awkward! I’m the only guy in the class and now I’m the one with the only black doll too! It gets weirder, trust me!

We started off by doing a little round-robin introducing ourselves. One of the women in the class that actually had a newborn said quietly “My names Carol (made-up name),... and I guess thats about it”! I told her “Well, you’re a new Mom”! She was a bit surprised, and re-introduced herself, this time a little prouder and louder!

When it was my turn, I got up and said enthusiastically “I’m M J-a-R, and I’m gonna be a Dad”! Then I made myself a fist and shouted “YES” as if I’d just won the Superbowl! All the ladies started laughing! In case you hadn’t already figured it out, I’m super-pumped that I’m gonna be a father!

After the short intros about ourselves we began the class! We practiced several techniques, and learned what they were useful for. Techniques that help digestion, or help the baby go to sleep, or calm the infant down! Pretty damn cool stuff!

We were about halfway through the class when I was hit by the ultimate awkward moment. A gentleman who reports to congress about, and then ok’s funds for programs like New Parent Education and Support walked into the room with about a 10 person entourage! This entourage included cameramen! Guess who had their picture taken a couple million times? You got it! The white guy who happened to be gently caressing the naked black newborn doll! How embarrassing!

Well, they left after about 10 minutes and we carried on with the rest of the lesson! I asked a ton of questions throughout the class, so at the end the lady that runs all the programs suggested that I make an appointment for a home visit. She said “Your questions go way beyond the scope of these classes”! Pretty cool, so I’ve got to set that up here after the Easter holiday!

The best part and possibly tied for “most awkward moment” was when the class was finished and the dolls were all redressed, the ladies invited me to the “Breast Feeders Support Group” meeting next week! I was a little shocked to say the least, so I just said “oh,...ok”!

Weird! But heck if it helps me prepare to become the ultimate dad, I’m gonna do it!

Illegals have no Constitutional Rights!

2006-04-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

Rallies across U.S. call for Illegal immigrant rights.

You’ve just got to love how the MSM spins stuff!

Does this make sense? Since when do people that are not a citizen of this country have the rights of this country?

The key word here is “Illegal”! Apparently that word no longer exists in the spanish vocabulary (or the MSM's for that matter)!

According to the CNN article: “The events served as a visible demonstration of political clout for supporters of the nation's estimated 11-12 million undocumented immigrants.”

Political clout? I think not! The more appropriate term would be MOB clout! If you’re not a citizen of the United States you’re illegal and have no right to vote in said country, and therefore you have zero political clout!

Honestly, how many of the people protesting at these rallies across the United States are actually legal? Why aren’t the police out checking Identification cards? Imagine how many illegals you could catch! You don’t even have to go out and look for them, they’re coming right to you!

Oh, thats right I forgot, Mob mentality! Bust one illegal and try to arrest him at one of these rallies, and they’ll start burning cities down!

One of my favorite quotes from the CNN article is: “In Washington, protesters held up signs proclaiming, "We Are America."

Apparently your translation to english wasn't correct. I believe you meant to say "We are Illegal"!

Here is a picture of another sign that I copied and pasted from Michelle Malkins site.

Very glad you could point that out to us. If you’re from Mexico or South America you most certainly would be American, you’re just not legally a United States citizen! Dumb@##es!

My second favorite quote from the CNN article was this: “"What we want to achieve is to send a very strong message to the Senate, to the Congress in general and this administration that immigrants are fed up, that we are tired, that we work very hard," Contreras said.”

Thats all fine and dandy Contreras, but what about the feelings of actual citizens on the country? Oh thats right, it’s unimportant to you! You only seek to force your elitist socialist multiculturalist attitude on the rest of America!

Like I’m not tired of working my @## off, only to have my hard earned money stolen from me by my government and then redistributed to an illegal alien! Instead of the government deporting their Illegal @##es, I, an actual UNITED STATES CITIZEN am paying for them even though they are ILLEGAL! They’re not even a citizen and yet they receive welfare, education, housing from our government!

What the United States government needs to do, is send a very strong message to the illegals, to the Mexicans in general and the administration of Vicente Fox, that we’re fed up (that your government is so corrupt that it’s police refuse to stop people from illegally crossing over into our country), that we’re tired (of illegals thinking they have our constitutional rights), and that we’re sick of our hard earned money being given to people who think they deserve our constitutional rights even though they’re illegal!

It’s time the government used the money it stole from my paycheck to build a gigantic wall all the way across the border! Then post detachments of United States Marines throughout the zone. Their orders should be to shoot first, deport later! I think this would be a good step towards curbing the illegal immigration problem.

Ignorance is Bliss by M J-a-R

2006-04-07T05:16:00.000-07:00

I made this yesterday, because I think it explains what I’m seeing take place in Europe. European attitudes toward Americans has never been great (they’ve always thought us inferior), but ever since the War on Terror, things have taken a turn for the worse!

Whats worse is they’ve become blind to what the EU/Socialism/Multiculturalism has done to them as a society! Europeans seem to believe every “fact” that their media lays out to them as if it were the Gospel! They’re so busy worrying about “America this, and America that”, that they’ve ignored their own problems! For instance, the fact that Muslims are taking over their countries, because they haven’t forced them to assimilate into their society (thanks to multiculturalism)!

When I first arrived here, it used to be the Germans that the Dutch would put down. The Dutch wouldn’t let what the Germans did in WW2 go, and they made sure the Germans knew it every time they crossed the border!

Now though, ever since the War on Terror, bad feelings towards the Germans have been dropped and instead aimed at Americans! I asked a Dutch woman “Why all of a sudden do you like the Germans and hate Americans”? She replied “The past is the past”!

WTF! Yesterday it was ok to remember the past, but today it’s irrelevant? Never-mind the fact that we saved you from the Germans you so dearly hated only three years ago! This is the mentality that we’re dealing with!

Europeans have become so quick to be judgmental of the United States, but yet they do nothing to help. They’re alternative has become ignorance! If they just ignore the problem it will simply go away!

Yeah, see if that @#$% works once the scimiter is at your neck!

I Want My Lee-Enfield

2006-04-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

I miss my Rifle! It’s been almost 3 years now that I haven’t gone hunting or practiced with my Lee-Enfield Ishapore Rifle! It’s so sad.

(this isn't a picture of my rifle, but it's basically the same model. Mine is cherry colored, and a bit more rugged looking)

I hear Germany has some nice hunting grounds, but I wouldn’t know because I reside in the Netherlands! If I wanted to bring my rifle here, I’d have to fill out form after form after form, and pay fee after fee after fee, and then I’d have to join a “shooters club”, and then expect to be hassled by the government a bit more! Once all that was completed, my rifle would then get stuck in some kind of mystical “quarantine”, until it was almost time for me to leave the country. Then when I finally received my rifle, I’d be expected to lock it up in the base armory, because even after all that paperwork and money and government hassle, I’m still not trusted to keep the weapon in my home!

You see, criminals are the only ones with guns in this euro-socialist paradise!

My Lee-Enfield fires a .307 Winchester. It’s sort of a weird caliber. I honestly think its a .308, just winchester wanted to be different. I don’t know!

Right at this very instant, I wish I were at the range shooting some targets! The last time I went to a range, was about a month before I came to Europe. The range was in Hodunk Podunk West Virginia!

It was great! All these hunters were out firing away with their new rifles that are made with state-of-the-art lightweight materials, and then I whip out this friggin’ bolt-action relic and start blasting away!

My rifle is big, it’s extremely heavy, it’s metal meshed with wood, and it’s loud as HELL! It’s like an abstract piece of art! I must have pumped out 3 rounds, and by the fourth I seemed to be firing all by myself! In fact, I was firing by myself because everybody else was peeking outside their little booth to see who the hell was making all the noise! Priceless is the word that comes to mind! Seeing all these guys peeking over to see who was firing with the “Big Boy” gun!

The butt-plate on my rifle is metal and by the time I was done my shoulder was black and blue! I liked the target practice with, but I think next time I’ll cut back to 20 rounds instead of 40! Ah, good times!

Damn, I miss my Rifle!

Time Off? I Think Not!

2006-04-01T09:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought having a week off work would give me ample time to write bigger-better-blogs, and write a bit more of my book. I thought wrong! Turns out when you have extra time off, it means you do more odds and end jobs at the house!

Like the crib thats been waiting forever in a day to get put together! Baby changing table? Yup, got that done too! Here’s a pic of the crib (not that you care)!

Amazingly I did all the laundry as well! Two weeks worth of it in one day! I changed all the blown light-bulbs in the house, and fixed the heaters! If it needed to get done or it needed to get fixed, this was the week it got done! Only thing I didn’t get too was the automatic security blinds for the kitchen door (there aren’t enough words in the english language to explain what it is)! I refuse to touch that thing, for fear it will eat my arm!

I can’t say the whole week was consumed by small projects though. I did happen to purchase a video game to play while I couldn’t walk for a couple of days! It’s called “The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction”! It’s great fun being able to run around as the Hulk, smashing everything that gets in your way! I think I almost re-herniated myself with laughter when I knocked a mercenary out, then ran all the way up the side of a skyscraper, then I jumped off and did a flying elbow right on top of the mercenary's head! It was priceless!

My little boxer princess Kaiya had visitors this week too! This is our neighbor kid Fisherman, and his little brother AmericanWannabe!

Being home for a whole week, I was also able to see some of my pets goofier moments!

Also, with all the time off I figured I’d stop by a couple of my favorite blogs and duke it out with a couple of liberals! One was on Caucasionally Challenged Christians site, and the other was at the Liberty Zone.

I had good fun with it, but sadly I neglected my own blog! It happens, but like I said in my FAQ, I’m easily distracted!

Oh look, it’s an eagle....

Majority Minority

2006-03-27T23:58:00.000-08:00

ox·y·mo·ron -

A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening silence and a mournful optimist.

I've been seeing the oxymoron MAJORITY MINORITY used a whole bunch lately, due to the immigration debate. I had read an article a while back about how the mexicans have basically taken over Texas (if I find the article, I'll link it). It stated that they now outnumber both whites and blacks in the State. I don't have any facts to back this up, but never-the-less the term Minority no longer fits them!

Don't understand? Well, these immigrants may not be white, but they now outnumber whites. This means that they are the MAJORITY and the white populus of the state are now the Minority. You can't have it both ways. You're either the Majority or the Minority, but never both!

Being a Majority means you're in control. Your policy is more likely to pass when voted on (or taken by force). Your language becomes more likely to be used (Not that it wasn't when you were a minority). Duh!

So quit with the play on words ya Marxists! You're the friggin' MAJORITY!

I'm Back!

2006-03-26T10:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I was released from the hospital yesterday! My abdominal region is still quite a bit sore and walking is slow-going, but I still feel 100 % better than before the surgery!

Anyhow, while in the hospital bed not doing much of anything, Stockman came by to see me! My wife came everyday to make sure everything was going fine (which is awesome), but it’s also good to see other familiar faces too.

I didn’t have TV while I was at St. Elizabeth's (it’s nice to detach yourself from civilization once in a while), so he and HBW told me some news that made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to re-herniate myself. He told me that an Afghan man was arrested in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity, and was going to receive death for doing so!

I didn’t laugh because a fellow Christian is being persecuted, but because this is typical of Islam! Once again, Islam is just piling on the “peaceful religion” points! Keep it up guys, you’re really winning everybody over!

Christians freed Afghans from their oppressive religious shackles, the Taliban. Yet these savages see fit to turn and persecute a christian convert! What makes it worse, is that this man was visiting his family, and they’re the ones that turned him in to the “authorities”!

These people have no concept of freedom, and never will. Like I’ve stated before, you’d have better luck teaching a chimp how to speak english, than teaching these savages the concept of freedom!

They’ll never truly understand what freedom means, because they didn’t earn it themselves. It was a gift given to them by the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and a small handful of other European nations (not that Europe truly understands the concept of freedom either).

They’ll never set aside their tribal differences, to come together and form a strong nation that’s not just beneficial to themselves, but too generations down the line! Their religion subjugates them much like Serfs to their Lords of Medieval Europe. They only do what their masters (imams) want them to do, and not what God wants them to do.

Just look at what the Sunni are doing to the Shiites in Iraq! Look at what has been done to the Kurds. Not just by Saddam’s Iraq, but by the Turks! And don’t be fooled by all the “Arab love” hoopla for the Palestinians either, because most of it’s just an act! None of the now “buddy Arabs” offered a place for Palestinian “refugees” except for Jordan, and they didn’t even want them either! Unfortunately, the MSM just reports this as an everyday occurrence for “peaceful” Islam that’s ok, and nothing more is said!

Can you imagine the headlines if Baptists started bombing Methodists in the States! We would never hear the end of it! Honestly, if America spills a glass of milk, Socialist European Newspapers would plaster the story all over their front pages! It’s the same with the media in the States too!

The important thing to witness, is that it doesn’t happen! Why? Because we set aside the small “tribal” differences and concentrate on the consistent things. That only through the son of man can one ascend to heaven. That through God comes true freedom, and not through man, or government! Our constitution was founded on this belief, which is why we have the bill of rights! (on a side note, this is why many Americans like myself have issues with abortion. Abortion is NOT a right, because it wasn’t given to man by God! Giving birth was a gift given to women, not killing their unborn child!)

Christianity is God’s relationship with man, and what God has gifted to man in order to set us free (Jesus being the big one). Islam has become (thanks to Sharia) mans relationship with man, using God to subjugate and imprison. This is why they kill one another over “tribal” differences, and will continue to do so throughout the rest of time.

Anyhow, getting back to Mr. Rahman, the Christian convert who is currently being persecuted by Islamofascists hard-liners in Afghanistan. If the countries supreme court or President Karzai doesn’t stop the trial (which will be a joke anyway), and execution, Islam will witness a true martyr. Not the islamic idiots strapping bombs across their chests and running into schools killing children. From what I’ve been reading since I’ve been out of the Hospital, it appears the Mr. Rahman harbors no ill will towards his captures and would be executioners! It reminds me of the story of all the Christians that were fed to lions by the Romans. They didn’t scream, or fight. They stood there, in the face of evil and started to sing. Even as the lions attacked they stood their ground and sang!

They died, and so far seems as if Mr. Rahman is destined to die because he has chosen to believe and have faith that Jesus is the son of man, and that only through him can one be reborn and truly be free!

Post # 100

2006-03-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

Ok, for my hundredth post, I’m gonna do a “Know-your-Host” thingy! A little Q & A session if you like! If figured, “Hey, why not”? After all I’m gonna be in the hospital for a week, so I’ve gotta leave something for my fellow humans to read while I’m away! So, lets begin!

Q: Um, Why are you gonna be in the hospital for a week?

A: I have a couple more hernias that need to be fixed. Surgery hurts, but honestly the pain I’m in now is worse!

Q: Are you mad about getting the short end of the genetic stick?

A: Nah, it could be worse. Sure I think God shit on me a little bit with my genetic faults. I think the Big Guy has a thing for suffering, I mean look what the guy did to his own son!

Q: That’s sort of a low blow to God don’t you think?

A: No, what I’ve said is absolutely true. I think I’ve got it bad with the amount of hernias I keep getting, but then i think “Well, God could have had me nailed to a cross, and raised up to suffocate to death slowly”! Personally I’m getting off easy!

Jug: Ok, ok guys enough with the surgery questions...ok?!

Q: Did you ever think you’d make it to 100 posts?

A: Heck no, I started this thing as a joke. Turned out I like writing a bit more than I thought.

Q: If you like writing so damn much, why don’t you write a book?

A: Well, I am! The problem though, is that I’m (a) easily distracted and (b) too gosh darn busy with life at the moment!

Q: Do you like reading as much as you do writing?

A: Sure do! Hasn’t always been that way. As a young buck, I would avoid books at all cost! Then I joined the Marine Corps, and came to realize that reading gave me knowledge, and then knowledge gave me power! What do all humans want? Power! I started reading Non-fiction Marine Combat Books, then political books, after that I dipped into fiction for a bit, and now I’m hooked on economics books!

Q: What do you think of Libraries throwing out books, “because they’re outdated”?

A: It annoys me quite a darn bit! First I found the Capitalism book (which after reading it, was clearly not out of date), but now I’m reading a book called “Indians of the Plains”, which is a history of these people that hasn’t changed all that much since 1960 when the book was published! I’ve come to the conclusion that it was thrown out because it has “Indian” in the title instead of the P.C. Native American! What a bunch of bull-malarky!

Jug: Ok guys, don’t get me started on this subject! I’m already starting to get P.O’d!

Q: What does HBW stand for?

A: It means Hot Babe Wife!

Q: Is she really as mean as what you make her out to be?

A: Sometimes she seems to be a lot like a rabid wolverine, but thats on very rare occasions! Well, not so rare now that she is pregnant and hormonal!

Q: If she as hot as you say? How come you never post a picture of her?

A: The reason for zero pictures of her is classified, but trust me when I say she is friggin’ hot!

Q: Ok, moving on with the subjects, what do you think about socialism?

A: IT SUCKS! It’s government thievery of your hard earned money, which is then redistributed to people in society that provide nothing! It breeds laziness! There is no room to dream here! I don’t want to get into this subject right now...next question

Q: What do you think about President Bush?

A: For a “Conservative” he spends way too much!

Q: That’s all you think about Bush?

A: No, for a “Conservative”, he sure added more “big” government to something that needs less,...PUBLIC SCHOOLING!

Q: Damn dude, has G.W. done anything you like?

A: Yeah, he dropped a @#$%load of bombs on Afghanistan liberating an oppressed people, and then turned around and liberated another oppressed people (only they don’t understand the concept of freedom)!

Q: Is there anything you’d wish George would do for you?

A: Drop a @#$%load of bombs on Iran before the Jews do, then send in the Marines to clean the rest of the Islamofascist out!

Q: You’re crazy!

A: Possibly, but please try to phrase it as a question next time!

Q: You’re crazy?

A: WHO TOLD YOU THAT? IT’s A LIE, THEY’RE ALL LIES!

Q: Ok then nutty fella, are you really a Marine?

A: Sure am, once a Marine always a Marine! I’m not on active duty anymore though!

Q: What rank were you?
A: Corporal
Q: Pretty low on the totem pole, aye?

A: One step above pawn scum, but lets face it, it’s better than being “RECRUIT SCUM” for eternity!

Q: RECRUIT SCUM?

A: You’ll never fully understand unless you’ve been through it yourself!

Q: Did you ever have to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq?

A: Nope, they didn’t need me! I’m not complaining though. I was placed on stop-loss for quite a while past my EAS date, but one day out of the blue, they (guys way up yonder on the totem pole) told us we could leave the Corps. Which I promptly did!

Q: Do you miss the Corps?

A: Yes and No! I miss my friends a lot, but I most certainly do not miss waking up at 0400 hours to run 10 miles!

Q: 10 Miles? That sounds unreasonable!

A: Yes 10 miles! Our 1st Sergeant had a hard-on for running from the Navy Yard to the Iwo Jima Monument every other day! A bit unreasonable? Only when we had to where our boots and run it! Yeah, my knees are @#$%ed!

Jug: Ok, ok times up on the questions now! I’ve got to head to the hospital, or I’ll be late for check-in!

Q: Just one more?

A: Oh fine dammit, but make it snappy!

Q: Where would you rather be right at this moment, instead of being at the hospital?

A: At Bob and Edith’s Diner in Arlington VA! I’d really love to have a Double Bacon Cheese Burger with a side of “Freedom” Fries

Jug: Oh by the way, if you’ve actually made it through all the FAQ and you feel it just didn’t cut it and you want to know more, then I suggest you ask in the comments section! Don’t be expecting an answer for a week or so, cause thats about the time I get out of the hospital!

Pregnancy Week 16 Check-up for HBW

2006-03-20T12:16:00.000-08:00

So, today has been a pretty fantastic day for me! In case you didn’t know, I’m gonna be a father soon! Here’s my original post on the subject, if you missed it first time round.

Anyhow, today was our (HBW and I) second doctors checkup! HBW is now 16 weeks along in the pregnancy. This check-up was just to make sure HBW is doing all right. Making sure she is meeting the weight requirements, has enough iron, and hearing the baby’s heartbeat again!

It was beating louder this time than it was the last time. It was so damn loud in fact that I thought possible the God of Thunder was trapped inside her belly! It was awesome hearing it again, and now I’m even more pumped to be a Dad!

After we were through listening to the heartbeat, we all sat down and went over what was going to happen at the next appointment in 4 weeks. Right in the middle of our discussion with the doctor, my stomach growled so loud it stopped the doctor mid-sentence! She stunningly said “Gee, somebody’s hungry”! I wasn’t too embarrassed by this, but a couple of minutes later it happened again. This time it was louder and longer! This time HBW had to stop talking because my tummy growled for about 40 seconds straight! I just ended up being stared at by the doctor and HBW, for what felt like an eternity. It was a bit ridiculous, and thats when I started to get a tiny bit embarrassed about it!

Oh well, aside from my embarrassing hunger all went well at the appointment today! I’m so excited! I can’t wait till week 20, when we get to see our baby again!

Join the U.S. Navy, FIGHT PIRATES!

2006-03-18T15:59:00.000-08:00

US Navy fights Pirates! Holy crap, when I saw the headline on CNN.com, I almost thought it was a joke! I expected to open up the article, and read about Leathernecks swinging from one naval vessel to another for a little swashbuckling action!

Nah, just turns out it’s a bunch of wanna-be pirates off the coast of Somalia! According to the article, "The suspected pirates then opened fire on the Navy ships," a press release from the Navy stated. "The Cape St. George and Gonzalez returned fire with small arms in self-defense."

My problem with this is, only one “pirate” was killed and five were wounded! What the hell, were these squids just sprayin’ and prayin’? I really think the Navy should consider having a squad of Marines placed aboard!

It would have been a much more interesting piece had it been one Marine swinging from the St. George over to the pirate ship, and hackin’ and a slashin’ some pirate scum with his Mameluke sword! Honestly, how long has it been since a marine has used his mameluke in combat?

Anyhow, I’m a Marine so I’m biased when it comes to who can fight pirates better! Not that I mind Seaman kicking some pirate ass, we just would have done a better job. Oh well, I’m just glad none of our mighty sailors got whacked in this skirmish.

Honestly though, I think they would have really kicked the @#$% out the pirates had they been Drunken Sailors! I tell you what, if I were involved in some sort of bar brawl, besides having a fellow leatherneck, a drunken sailor is damn good buddy to have watching your back! Mouthy, tough, tattooed up drunken sailor, there’s no stoppin’ em (unless you’re offering more beer)!

Anyhow, here’s a little history on the US Navy and Marines fighting pirates!

Barbary Wars

Burn Peugeot, Burn!!!

2006-03-18T12:36:00.000-08:00

Welfare babies of Socialist France have been rioting (this time it's not the Muslims) for more than a week now. Why? Because French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has introduced a new measure, which takes effect in April, that loosens some of Frances borderline communist control over employers.

Students fueled on by Marxist Labor Unions, are burning vehicles and rioting because the measure seeks to give employers the power to terminate employees within a two year time span. Thats a great thing for their economy, not to mention employers! Currently (thanks to the commies-in-house), once a frenchman is hired, it basically takes an act of God to fire that individual. Now you see why the French produce nothing but laziness, and have a huge unemployment rate.

No longer can lazy frenchman get a job and not worry about getting fired for being non-productive! They’ll have to be productive for at least two years now. This measure doesn’t go nearly as far as what I’d take it, but it’s definitely a good start!

Anyhow according to the one CNN.com article I could find, “The students' anger focuses the job contract that would allow employers to fire young workers in their first two years on a job -- without saying why”!

Why should they give you a reason? If you’re a good worker you won’t get fired, but if you’re a lazy piece of @#$% frenchman not contributing anything to the company then you get the pink slip!

Also according to CNN.com, “Chirac has called for immediate negotiations between the government and students and unions, while calling the contested measure "an important element in the policy of fighting unemployment."

What is it with socialists and negotiations? Listen up President Chicrap, if your negotiations never work with the Iranians, what makes you think they’ll ever work with communist student frogs? Hasn’t your government learned not to negotiate with Unions either? Communist Unions are whats gotten your economy into this mess in the first place! This measure should not be up for negotiation, period! It’s high time French society was weaned from the socialist welfare tit!

Be thankful Communist Frogs that I am not your Prime Minister, because I would crush your precious “labor unions”, with an iron capitalist fist!

A Kodak Moment

2006-03-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

There are some quotes in this world that you just can't top. This happens to be one of them.

History Repeats Itself

2006-03-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

It’s strange, but this book "Capitalism" was written in 1972 and revised in 1974, but most of the information in the book is still very much relevant today! This book isn’t just about “Capitalism”, it’s about our history!

I found another awesome paragraph in the book, and it made me think of what my father always told me as a child. History always repeats itself!

“To prosecute a foreign war, which most reformers saw as nothing but a greedy struggle for wealth and power, would mean catering to big business. Fortunately or unfortunately, Wilson was a missionary and gradually, as the war expanded and Germany’s role became more apparent, he began to see the war as one against mankind. Eventually he took the United States into it with the loftiest of motives, to guide a victory that would culminate in world reform and, as he put it, “make the world safe for democracy.””

I don’t know about you, but that sounds awfully damn familiar! Lets take a closer look at this shall we!

“As the war expanded, Germany’s role became more apparent, he began to see the war as one against mankind.” To me this can be looked at in two different ways.

1. Germany attacked Poland, and Europe did nothing about it. When Europe decided it was going to do something about Germany, it was already to late. America had to send it’s young men off to War to save Europe, again.

Somalia is another example. The UN, and Europe couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything about it, and America had to step in.
Serbia is yet another shining example of Europeans doing nothing, and Americans having to come to the rescue.

For some reason though, we had turned into the Europeans. Pretending what was happening around us wasn’t! Turning a blind eye to what was happening to our ally Israel!

2. The other example is simply this. We have known about fanatical islam for quite sometime now, but have chosen to ignore it (like Europeans). Remember all those Marines killed in Beruit by fanatical islamists? I sure do! We played like Europeans, and we did nothing! Remember the USS Cole bombing? I sure do, and yet again we did absolutely nothing! Thank you Bill Clinton! Remember September the 11th? We all should, and it became very apparent what the motives of radical islamists were, to destroy mankind. To destroy our way of life, so they can impose their will upon everyone! It took the Japanese to wake us out of our slumber then, and now the Islamofascist have given us yet another wake up call. Fanatical Islam is a plaque that needs to be wiped off the face of the earth just like Fascism! President Bush could see this, and is leading just like Wilson had done.

“Eventually he took the United States into it with the loftiest of motives, to guide a victory that would culminate in world reform and, as he put it, “make the world safe for democracy.”

Is that not history repeating itself? Sounds a whole lot like President Bush, but it’s not. Sadly though, it’s the same situation, different time period. This is what the war in Iraq is truly all about, “making the world safe for democracy”!

Like our forefathers, I believe will will prevail against this enemy of mankind, of democracy!

Happiness Is Not Something That Can Be Taught!

2006-03-12T22:30:00.000-08:00

I thought this was a joke at first, but apparently it isn't!

Ivy League schools offer classes on Happiness

Higher education? Not with classes like this! I guess this is a part of the "lets stop teaching about capitalism" mentality. I can just picture socialist professors discussing what to put in it's place!

"Aren't you just glad we dropped evil capitalism off the syllabus professor Uncle Joe" asked professor Marx

"Damn glad Carl, thanks for mentioning the idea to me" said professor Stalin

"Have you given any thought as to what academic work you could put in it's place" inquired Marx

"Well as a matter of fact, I was thinking about replacing it with a course about how to attain happiness" stated Joe

"Damn you're a clever socialist Joe", "That fits right into our communist philosophies nicely" exclaimed Marx

"I thought you'd like the idea" Joe said gleefully

"The people will love your idea Joe" Marx cheerfully said

Thank God, Finally Justice Has Been Served!

2006-03-12T22:10:00.000-08:00

(CNN) -- The United Nation's chief prosecutor in The Hague says Slobodan Milosevic's death is a "great pity for justice" and makes it "more urgent than ever" to bring other war crimes fugitives to trial.

What a joke! It’s a “great pity for justice”? Having a trial go on for more than 3 years for the slaying of a million people is Justice? Having no chance of being hanged for slaying a million people is justice?

Get the heck out of here UN chief prosecutor! Why do you think we’re having Saddam tried in Iraq? Duh, because true justice will be done to him in the end!

Anyhow, I don’t know about you, but I’m glad this extremely evil human croaked. Sure he could have suffered much more which would have been fine and dandy, but doesn’t it just give you a warm and fuzzy knowing this guy is burning in the flaming pits of hell for eternity now?!

That’s the ultimate punishment if I’ve ever known one. I mean, it’s most certainly more of a punishment than the War Crimes Court in the socialist criminal cuddling Netherlands could have ever handed out! What sounds more of a just judgment to you! 25 years in a cell handed down by the War Crimes Tribunal, or an eternity in the flaming pits of hell handed down by God?

A great pity for justice? I think we’ve just witnessed the ultimate judgment of them all! I hope this scumbag enjoys his eternal stay in damnation!

As for bringing the others war crimes fugitives to justice being “more urgent than ever”, I say the same thing. Wether they get caught or not, eventually they’ll have to explain to their maker why they slaughtered innocents at will. They too will receive their eternal judgment in hell, and thats more a punishment than any human can hand down!

Capitalism

2006-03-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

The other day at work, I had to take the cardboard boxes out to the recycle bin. Not an uncommon thing to do when working in my minimum wage occupation.

Anyhow, while I was outside chucking boxes away, one of the school janitors came outside with a cart full of books he was told to throw away. Books from the school library!

I don’t know what’s up with the library doing something like this, but most of the books being thrown away were history books, economics, and some canadian stuff! The book that caught my eye though, was “Capitalism” by James D. Forman!

I grabbed it out of the pile, and told the socialist janitor that I was taking it! He didn’t seem to care, or maybe he just didn’t understand me. Probably a bit of both.

The really funny part here is (well actually saddening), the school library is throwing out a book about Capitalism, but not throwing away the “Socialism” book, and it’s very evil cousin, the “Communism” book! Perhaps this is part of the reason why more and more young adults are being turned into leftists! Public schools are just throwing out the subject of Capitalism altogether now (sort of like the book)! Seems as though government funded public schools are turning into their older brothers...the Universities of “higher” learning! They seem to skip over Capitalism, and praise Communism and Socialism instead! I guess I can see why, since both those forms of economics (Communism and Socialism) were created in the elitist university setting!

On the second paragraph of page three of the book is an awesome statement about Capitalism! Here it is!

“Unlike its recent rivals, capitalism was born, not made. Without benefit of disgruntled intellectuals or revolutionaries, it simply grew as a way of doing business and, ultimately, as a way of living. There have been economists and philosophers to describe it’s workings, but it has developed in a pragmatic rather than theoretical fashion.”

Now I know why they (teachers, professors, and Mr. Bennish) hate it so much! They didn’t create it! And what they did create instead has either failed (communism), or is failing (socialism)!

Anyway, I’m gonna stop writing, and read the rest of the book now!

Suspicion Confirmed

2006-03-09T23:40:00.000-08:00

Well, today I drove to the hospital in Germany to see if I had a hernia...again! The drive really sucks, because Dutch traffic lights are the PITS! A drive to the border should only take about 15 minutes from my house, but ends up taking 45 minutes because of the damn lights! Once you get over the border everything just seems a bit less gloomy, a bit more spacious, and most certainly a bit more efficient!

I don’t know why this is! The Germans live 15 minutes away, but when you cross that border it seems as if you’re in a different world! It’s great fun! Every time a German speaks to you, you think your being cursed and yelled at! Kinda feels like talking to a Greek New Yorker or a friggin’ Bostonian!

Don’t get me wrong though, I love the Netherlands, but lets face it...you can never get a decent meal here! It’s all frikkendellen and fries! I love that @#$%, but damn, sometimes I just want a decent meal (one where I can tell what meat I’m eating)...and yes beer too!

Anyhow, back to the real story! I arrived at the hospital with a little time to spare. I dotted around GK for a bit snooping for a parking place close enough to the hospital, so as not to have to hike there from the car! For some reason, they always have to put a hospital on top of a hill in Germany! Strange!

So, I got up to the doctors office, and only had to wait 5 minutes to be seen. Not bad, huh?! As soon as I got in, I started to tell him what my problem was, so he had me lay on one of his stretcher/table thingies! He put his hand on one part of my lower abdomen, and had me flex my abdominal muscle/flub! I screamed like a dog receiving a spankin’ for getting into the trash! The doctor just looked at me and said in the most serious tone “that is not a good thing”! He said it as if he were telling me that I was gonna die within a week! I think the term for this would be...Deadly Serious! I started laughing inside, because the Germans, no matter how vast their knowledge of english is, can never get the proper “tone”! I’m almost positive though, that the germans do the same thing to us when we speak their tongue.

After that, I was escorted by one of the Nurses to the ultrasound area so that the hole in my abdominal area could be pinpointed! It most certainly was! All two centimeters of it! He also checked the other side of my lower ab, and found a smaller rip there too! Not that I’m trying to count, but this brings the total of hernias I’ve had to 5 now! 3 the last time, 2 this time. You’ve just got to hate genetics sometimes! The ultrasound tech, said “Holy Shit” when he heard how many I’ve had! Yes I could tell what he said even though I speak zero German!

When the ultrasound was over, the tech walked me back to the doctors office to set me up with a date for surgery! As he was glancing over the books, he looked at me and asked if there was much pain involved with it. I looked at him and calmly said “Yeah, it’s a tad painful when your balls feel like lead weights”! The two german nurses in the office just busted out laughing! He was stunned to say the least! There is no way in hell I would have gotten away with that kind of talk in the NL! German women love a good joke! After we all had a good laugh, one of the nurses asked me if I would like a single room or double! I looked at her and said with deadly seriousness “Whatever Tricare will pay for”! We all busted out laughing as she put in a check for the double! Insurance, it’s a bitch!

Oh well, I’ve got a date for getting put under the knife now. German doctors to the rescue again! SWEET!

VISA NO MORE, and More!

2006-03-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I’ve finally paid VISA back all the money we (HBW and I) owed! All 3k of it at once! More than half that amount was racked up on our trips to France (I was forced to go to frogrijk), and Brugge. I couldn’t take looking at the statements anymore, so I took the money from our savings and payed the crap off!

For the longest time now I’ve been putting half my paycheck into the savings account, and giving the other half to VISA. I just figured that I’m paying more in interest to the credit card company, than I’m earning with my money sitting in the savings account, so I took it all out and killed the VISA debt off!

Not that I earn a heck of a lot of money right now, I’ll end up saving the 3k in no time flat though! We don’t owe VISA @#$% anymore, so my whole paycheck will now be deposited into savings!

Still though, it’s annoying that I even had to empty the savings. HBW has quickdraw VISA hands, so as soon as she gets home on Friday, I’m gonna snatch that card from her and destroy it (right in front of her face)! I’m not going to let this happen again, and I’m taking steps to make sure it won’t!

IN OTHER NEWS...

Tomorrow I’m headed back to Germany for some more medical attention! I’m 100% positive that I’ve gotten another herniation. Yeah, it sucks! I can’t really move my left leg right now. Our car is stick-shift, so my driving makes me look like I’m a learner driver! A whole lot of stalling out, and a bit jerky the rest of the time! I can’t help it, I can’t get my leg to work properly! My brain tells it to “lift off clutch”, and it just won’t! When I get it to, it comes flying off it, no “steady as she goes” for my leg!

Anyhow I’m just going in tomorrow to get...um...checked out...by the doctor. Then, like the last time this happened, get an ultrasound to pinpoint the culprit! My boss said he doesn’t care what days I take off of work for all the appointments and crap, but I can’t take next Wednesday off! I told him he’d have a tough time getting me to come in if I have to get surgery! My boss can be a nutty fella sometimes. I’m going to blame it on him being a Limburger! I make salads and sandwiches, and then run a register...like I’m hard to replace!

Oh well, I can play along and pretend my job is so important, that without me the children of the school would surely starve to death!

While we're on the subject...

2006-03-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

...of schooling, I happened to dig up this fantastic article written by John Stossel! Here it is!

Myth: School's don't have enough money

Reply to Sparkles!

2006-03-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

sparkles4ever said... about this post...
therefore our students are being cheated of a decent education.

I beg to differ MJR--- not only does it have to do with the teachers, but the way the public school system is in the U.S. also has to do with the morality that the parents are teaching their kids. I think there are plenty of DECENT educators out there, hell, I had quite a few... I know you did too. I think it is a VERY general statement that you made, of which I have copied and pasted above, in regards to students being cheated of a decent education.

If I can remember correctly, you weren't the most enthuastic student in the bunch at school, yet, you are brillant, have a brillant mind, and where did you learn that from? School and having a stable homelife.

Just because one teacher in thousands has some outlandish remarks and thoughts on teaching doesn't mean that all teachers are bad. Alot has to do with the morality of the parents these days. Kids are having kids, etc. And it creates a multitude of problems. I deal with this in regards to insurance and health care. I know, totally different subject, but what I am saying is I see it... but I believe that your statement as to strictly bring your child up in home schooling because of this teacher's doing is rather far fetched.

I know, you will have some thing to spat back, but some of your ideologies are rather far out there

You are absolutely correct Sparkles4ever, I do have something to say back!

Sparkles, I think your missing the point completely. Teachers (especially those on the left) can force feed students what they like, because there is absolutely zero accountability for what they do! No thanks to the teachers unions, and the system being majority socialist! Imagine if a conservative teacher started spouting off about abortion being murder! Can you imagine what would happen? I think you can!

Because the government runs a monopoly on education, it forces families who can’t afford to send their children to a private schools into a system that no matter how much money gets pumped into it, always fails! Ask yourself this question? How come public schools spend about 10,000 dollars per student, but private christian schools spend about half that, and give a better education?

Introducing competition into the school system through vouchers or government checks straight to the private school or family, would force the system to correct itself! How? Well, if public schools are losing students to better private schools, they’ll be forced to hire good teachers, and fire the wastes of space! Otherwise they lose that Almighty government money train! Our great state of Florida started a voucher program, that would have worked, but thanks to the Teachers Union, and the left leaning state supreme court it was shot down!

Don’t even say this type of program won’t work, because as much as I hate to say this, we need only look at how it’s working for BELGIUM! Belgium has a program of school vouchers, and their education system is the best in Europe, and one of the best in the world! Good Lord, that really hurt me to say something in Europe works better than in America!

As for the morality the parents are teaching the kids, thats almost a different topic. I suppose I’ll touch on it a bit here though. Go ahead and thank the Hippies, Marxist/Maoist, Feminist, and Socialist Democrats for this! Thanks to the fact that these humans have bombarded the majority of airwaves, and yes...academia too, we have been forced away from Gods moral teachings! Part of our moral decline is due to our societies lean towards a godless, faithless secular left! The more our society likes to push God out of the picture, the more our society will have to deal with the rising costs of abortion, misguided children, murderers and rapists and everyday criminals!

As far as you saying “you weren't the most enthusiastic student in the bunch at school, yet, you are brilliant, have a brilliant mind”! Thanks, it always feels good to have one’s eldest sister state that one is brilliant and has a brilliant mind! As for being one of the least enthusiastic students at the school, you’d have to agree our school wasn’t very challenging, in fact it was more like a 7 hour a day prison! I believe you’ll agree most of the teachers at the school that we attended were most certainly not qualified! In my time there, I only had 3 decent teachers, and I can name exactly who they are and why I loved what they taught me!

1. Mr. Wiley - Art Teacher - taught me better technique, and helped feed my passion for drawing and painting.

2. Mr. Klenovic - English - taught me as much proper english as bests he could within a school year, and he is part of the reason why I have a passion for the written and spoken language!

3. Mr. Payne - English - taught me all about the Greeks and the Romans! He instilled in me the passion for the Myths, always reminded me to think freely, and pushed me to write and read better!

Having a stable home was surely a huge plus for all of us, but don’t forget, Mom and Dad also made sure that God was in our lives! I know you remember going to Sunday School every single Sunday!

Anyhow, thats about all I’ve got to say in this little “spat”! Tot Ziens!

James "The Level Designer" Beech

2006-03-03T13:42:00.000-08:00

So, I’ve just found out that my best friend James is about to graduate from college...again! This time I think he’s going to try and get a job though! In fact, I have his resume right here! He went to school a second time to get a degree in video game level design. Pretty awesome if you ask me! I think you’ll agree too once you’ve seen his work!

Anyhow, as long as I’ve know this guy (which is close to an eternity), he’s always loved video games and dreamed of one day being able to make them! I’d say he’s definitely on his way!

I look forward to seeing his name in the credits after my kid has beaten the hell out of one of his games!

Comrade Bennish

2006-03-03T05:46:00.000-08:00

After listening to this recorded piece of Mr. Bennish’s left leaning class lesson, I’m really starting to consider not putting our child through public schooling, and instead going with the only alternative available, Home Schooling. I know it’s several years off, but lets face it, public schools aren’t getting any better.

The real sad part about this, is this teacher is most likely not going to be punished! Although our society is economically Capitalist, are public school system is not! It’s the largest monopoly within the United States, and it’s run by...dare I say “Government”! There is no competition, and therefore our students are being cheated of a decent education. If there were competition for schooling, do you think this teacher would still have a job? Only at Harvard (ok, ok, maybe Yale too)!

You can tell that Mr. Bennish is a die hard marxist, when you hear him spouting off about capitalism! Here, let me quote him on this one.

“Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.”

Well, I’ll go ahead and answer some of these questions for Comrade Bennish!

1.) Where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Nowhere, and why should it? Capitalism is a form of economics, not government or church! Hence the reason why it has survived as long as it has!

2.) Is that a part of this system? No, again why should it be? This is a system of trade, not of government! Capitalism allows me a place where I can go and sell my product to a person who is willing to pay the price that I’m asking for, and in turn he can sell what was purchased at a price that his customers are willing to pay! By the way, providing the “basic needs” was a huge part of Communism, which just so happened to fail miserably! Imagine that, a form of economy run by a government, failing! Hope you enjoy waiting hours in line just for toilet paper Comrade Bennish!

3.) Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? Yes, clearly I can see how this economic system is at odds with the laziest of humanity! If you’re not willing to work hard and stay competitive, you will most certainly die off. If I can get my toilet paper cheaper and faster with somebody else, I’ll most certainly take my business there! You keep on waiting in line Comrade!

4.) At odds with caring and compassion? Why should Capitalism be caring and compassionate? Its a system of economics where only the strong survive! Kind of like the “real world” wouldn’t you say Comrade? Again though, it’s an economic system, and not government or church! If your not willing to exert yourself, you’ll get nothing out of the system! On the other hand, if you work hard and stay competitive you’ll most certainly survive! Kind of sounds a bit like evolution doesn’t it?

5. It’s at odds with human rights? Um, what planet are you living on Comrade? How many times can one say “Capitalism is not government or church”! Does capitalism have some kind of “constitution” which states it shall provide the people with riches (like toothpaste and toilet paper) even if the people are lazy and do nothing? Hell no it doesn’t, and I suggest Comrade Bennish, if you don’t like our system, you pack a suitcase and head to North Korea. While your there though, I hope you enjoy all the aid provided to the people of NK by the United States, thanks to CAPITALISM!

I’m not going to go over every Leftist myth and ideal that Mr. Bennish was spouting off to the students in his class. My post has become long enough as it is, and the more I think about it the more rage is building up inside of me! It should do the same for you too! This really makes you wonder what your kids are being force fed in school, doesn’t it?

"Two Words"

2006-03-01T06:46:00.000-08:00

Although this cartoon is pretty funny, it actually speaks a great deal more than it’s “two words”.

This is the perfect example of how feminism is slowly killing America, one unborn taxpaying citizen at a time!

If something doesn’t happen soon, my generation (whom I’ll call “Generation Lazy”) will be in a world of shit! We conservatives might be living in somewhat good times right now, but believe me when I say “We’re headed towards Euro-style Socialism”!

Why you ask? and What is Euro-style socialism?

Well, let me tackle the second question first!

Euro-style socialism is this! The European governments tag every item sold within their countries boundaries with a 19%+ sales tax! Then your paycheck that you worked hard for also gets heavily taxed! Companies doing business here in Europe also get over-taxed! IT’S TAX, TAX, TAX HERE!. All this money then gets redistributed to people and programs that don’t deserve it, and or don’t really work! Unless you’re already rich here, you’re going nowhere! NO DREAMING HERE, because the governments are going to strip you of all you’ve earned and redistribute it as they see fit! Boy, doesn’t this seem a bit like Communism?

Now to answer the first question of why we’re headed for Euro-style socialism. To begin with lets look at the size of the next generation that is going to be pulling non-existent funds from a failing socialist program known as Social Security (no numbers, I just broke it down "Barney" style)!

Compared to the current generation whom I’ll call “The Somewhat Immortals” bleeding the Social Security well dry, the Baby Boomers are Goliath in size! Now, lets look at the size Generation Lazy! Kind of small compared to the BOOMERS!

Ok, now let me hit you with the ultimate mind-bending question! Who do you think will be paying for these Baby Boomers to sit on Florida beaches, sucking down margaritas and living 20 years longer than what they naturally should?

If your mind survived that question, and you guessed that Generation Lazy would be forced to hand over the dough, you’d be absolutely correct! Problem is, how does a smaller group pay for a group thats larger? Insane taxes on everything (And you thought 3 dollars for a gallon of gas was expensive, wait till you see the price of a gallon of milk) Hence becoming Euro-socialist!

I most certainly don’t want this outcome (because it would never work anyway), but it will most likely happen. You can bet your Social Security (like that has any value to my generation) that the Baby Boomers are for damn sure going to get what ”they” paid into! I know they deserve to retire and enjoy the rest of life, but at what expense to the rest of us. Not just my spoon fed generation, but generations after ours! The quickest solution to this problem would be to kill off Social Security altogether!

I know, I’m “evil” right? I tell you what though, if you’re a Baby Boomer and reading this little post, ask yourself this question. Do I trust Generation Lazy to be able to pay for my retirement benefits? The answer is a definite “@#$% NO”! You raised us, you know exactly how lazy and self centered most of us are!

We love you guys, really. You’ve given us Hippies, Socialist/Marxist Professors, Anti-War movements, Ultra Feminists and Unlimited Genocide, I mean Abortion. We really don’t want anything else, especially the tab for your benefits.

So what do you say Boomers! Shall we kill off Social Security before it’s to late?!

Pictures of Our Baby at 12 Weeks!

2006-02-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I told you as soon as I made contact with a scanner, I’d show you the pictures of our firstborn! There isn’t very much to see in them, but here they are!

My dutch friends girlfriend was kind enough to scan them in for HBW and I! Apparently though, they (my dutch buddy and his girlfriend) accidently left the pictures in the scanner, where later on in the evening her mother found them and went ballistic! My dutch friend said he had to spend a bit of time explaining to his girlfriends mother that it wasn’t theirs! That must have been an awkward situation to say the least, but funny to us though!

What Superhero Would HBW Be?

2006-02-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

Her results:
She is Supergirl!

Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Supergirl 92%
Green Lantern 80%
Hulk 75%
Wonder Woman 72%
Superman 60%
Robin 60%
Catwoman 55%
Spider-Man 50%
The Flash 45%
Iron Man 30%
Batman 25%

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Superman?

2006-02-22T23:45:00.000-08:00

Your results:
You are Superman
You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Superman 65%
Green Lantern 60%
Supergirl 60%
Hulk 50%
The Flash 50%
Wonder Woman 40%
Robin 35%
Catwoman 35%
Spider-Man 30%
Batman 30%
Iron Man 25%

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Our First Peek at Our First Baby!

2006-02-21T01:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I woke up at the @##-crack of dawn thinking it was Monday, the day we (HBW and I) were supposed to go to the hospital and see our baby for the first time with the ultrasound! Yeah, it was a very strange feeling after I got out of the shower and shouted to HBW “Get up, we’re gonna be late”, and in return she shouted “Why, it’s Sunday @##hole”!

Somehow, I had managed to lose a day, and I didn’t even drink a single beer the previous evening! Is that normal? It sure didn’t feel normal! In fact, the strange feeling I had gotten was of utter stupidity! What happened? How could my brain let me down like this? How weird! Oh well, lets fast forward to today, and truly skip the rest of yesterday! Shall we?....

We begin this adventure at our local hospital!

Paper work, paper work, paper work! For the Dutch being an “environmentalist” nation and all, they sure seem to use a whole lot of paper! I thought it was never going to end! Thankfully it did, but at a hefty price. You see, I can only type with my left hand now, due to my right hand being semi-crippled because of “excessive manuscript syndrome”! It’s really a sad sight and all,...the hand that is,...and if my camera wasn’t made for righties, I’d take a picture of it!

Anyhow, moving on! After we were done creating a novel of information for the hospital, all that was given in return was a little plastic card for HBW, which means she’s “officially” in the SYSTEM!

Well, since HBW was now in the system, we made our way down to the OBGYN area of the hospital. Oh Joy! Seriously though guys, this is like the “ladies only” section of the hospital! It’s like the ladies bathroom compared to our own! It’s cleaned to perfection, smells pleasant, and in general has a good Zen-like vibe to it, unlike the rest of the hospital which carries the stench of a dirty pair of socks. I suppose the OBGYN section has to be this way. I mean I’d want to be as comfortable as possible if I was about to be probed in my nether-regions with a huge metal scoop-thingy! Well, while I was walking up to the check-in area with my wife I was shot some deadly looks from some other women in the vicinity. It kind of gave me this feeling like I was a slimy turd in an all white room!

As soon as we got there, we were told to go to the ultrasound waiting room, which was about 20 feet away. What a huge distance to trek,...Wow my dogs were barking after that march! I plopped down in one of the many open seats for a bit of a rest before being called in by the Ultrasound Tech!

I promise, I’m getting to the good bit....honest!

We were finally called into the Echo room after a short two minute wait! This is it! This is the first time I get to lay eyes on our child! The Tech was very nice, and told us to look up at the TV hanging from the ceiling! My heart started pounding in my chest like a jackhammer! Thank God for ribcages, because if I didn’t have a strong one, my heart would have popped out of my body! About two seconds after she told us to look up, there it was bright as day! My baby’s huge noggin’ (It’s like and orange on a toothpick)! The tech moved the ultrasound controller over HBW’s lower belly to get a better angle!

My heart was beating so fast at this point, I felt as if I was going to pass out! Then the tech said “and there is your baby”! BAM, there it was, the whole child all spread out as if tanning in the Sun! Everything changed to slow-motion, while the tech pointed out all the features, even though I could tell what they were!

Unbelievable! 12 weeks, and it has all the human features! A big head, a beating heart, two arms and hands (with fingers), and 2 legs with feet, and two tiny little butt cheeks. Our baby must have been irritated by all the pressing the tech was doing, and decided to send us a message! The baby just rolled over on it’s side, and BAM there it was, a tiny full moon!

Honestly though, I just don’t have enough words in my vocabulary to describe the feelings running through my body at this stage!

Because our baby was bouncing around inside, the Tech couldn’t get a decent angle for us to listen to the heartbeat. I would say this would be a sad thing, but honestly just being able to see our child at this stage simply amazes me! The Tech printed out some pictures for us, and we left the room (I’ll post them as soon as I come in contact with a scanner)!

We went back to the check-in area for our next appointment. Well, HBW’s appointment! This was an “off limits” area for me! We were told to sit down again, and waited for about another two minutes before HBW’s doctor called her into the office.

I just sat there in the waiting room for what felt like an eternity, still amazed at what I had seen only moments before! I helped create this baby! Fifty percent of it is made up of my genetics! Simply Amazing! Then HBW came out of the doctors office, and told me to come in with her!

HBW was asked to lay on the love-seat like stretcher and pull up her shirt a little bit. The doctor pulled out a mini-ultrasound thing, and placed it on her belly! The doctor said, “in a second you should....”, but was cut off by the sound that came out as if on a loudspeaker! The baby’s heartbeat! It was so fast and loud, HBW said in a shaky voice “It sounds like a helicopter”! It really did, and when I heard it I almost broke out in tears!

I thought I had seen and heard some pretty amazing things so far in my life, but nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing compares to what I witnessed today! I’m gonna be a Dad!

These are Great!

2006-02-18T10:29:00.000-08:00

Of Course They Want Control of the Net!

2006-02-16T23:00:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting article about how the U.N. wants to take control of the net away from America. Never mind the fact that we created it, and allowed other nations to share in it's glory! I had heard that the UN was trying to do this, but haven't read or heard to much about it until now.

It's funny how the U.N. wants to tax the net, so it can have an independent stream of revenue instead of asking member nations for donations. So, basically they want this tax revenue, so they no longer have to rely on American dollars to stay afloat! Again, it's clear to see that this move is another way in which the U.N. (especially jealous socialist european nation members), wants to seperate itself from American influence!

I guess instead of wasting American Taxpayers money on worthless projects and humanitarian efforts (remember Somalia, Sudan, Iraq Oil for Food), they'll waste the entire planets hard earned money! This is yet, another shining example of why we (America) should jump this ship of fools now, instead of waiting till it's too late!

I mean come on, just look at the members of the security council for God sake! Do you think Iran will receive any form of punishment for enriching Uranium? Not in a million years with permanent members like Russia, China, and France! There's no way in hell these idiots should have control of the internet!

PINK EYE!

2006-02-15T21:50:00.000-08:00

I have Pink Eye now! It’s the fourth thing to happen to me in four weeks! I’m really beginning to hate working at this school! These children are disgusting! I wasn’t the only one at the Nato Clinic today with Pink Eye either! I was the fifth one, and my appointment was at 10 in the morning. I can only imagine how many people came in after me with the infection!

This is the second time in my life now that I’ve had something nasty attack my eye! I had some form of Pink Eye when I was younger and that was far worse than this one, but that doesn’t mean this one isn’t nasty though!

At least I can open my eye with this latest bug I’ve gotten. The last form of Pink Eye I had, I couldn’t even do that! Partly because of the eye crusties, and partly because it made my eye ultra sensitive to light and air. This time, my vision in my right eye is a bit blurry and itchy, but thats about it.

Besides the doctor giving me medicine for the Pink Eye, I was also given nasal spray, and some kind of really strong cold medicine! I’m so glad he did that, because honestly, I’m really tired of getting cold after cold after cold!

Not that I mind the time off of work being sick has given me, I’d rather take days off when I feel less shitty! Oh well, time for my meds!

BURN KFC, BURN!

2006-02-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Well, guess the Islamofascist bitches couldn’t get into the US embassy (or perhaps they saw my link of what the Marines standing guard would turn them into if they did try), and decided instead to torch KFC, Pizza Hut, and Holiday Inn!

Funny thing is, the main stream media is just saying “they’re attacking western establishments”! What the @#$% are they talking about? These aren't European things! Lets get the facts straight here MSM, these are all “AMERICAN” companies! JUST SAY IT, IT ISN’T ALL THAT HARD TO DO!

Even though the American MSM bowed down to the islamofascists thuggery, our businesses are being fire bombed anyway (as if we didn’t see this coming). You can feel safe though, they skipped over your Mid-Eastern Headquarters...for now! Way to show “respect” to people who don’t understand the concept, and quite possibly never will! I would compare what you did with trying to teach a chimpanzee how to speak english! It’ll never happen! Another good example of this is the United Nations trying “dialog” with Iran on the “nuclear situation”! It’ll never go anywhere! YOU CANNOT NEGOTIATE WITH THESE SAVAGES!

Anyhow, it’s no longer a protest about cartoon depictions of Muhammad (as if it ever was in the first place), but now it's just an excuse to riot and burn anything and everything “American”!

By the way Islamofaschist bitches, have you considered not doing all the dirty work for PETA? Come on now, torching a KFC? How...animal rights of you! You savages have me a bit confused now. Are you fighting for Animal Rights, Animals with Rights but none for Humans, or perhaps No Rights for anyone?

In Other News...Part 2!

2006-02-13T18:10:00.000-08:00

I’ve been informed personally by my little sister ChinaChicky, that my site has indeed been made a forbidden fruit by China! @#$% YEAH, good feelings moving back in! It’s truly a great feeling knowing that you’ve made Red China’s NO NO list! Guess they really were pissed off at my attempts to make chinese food!

Oh, Sparkles4ever, ChinaChicky wanted me to pass a message to you!

begin transmission “Thanks for sending me the “secret” website that allows me to bypass China’s bull**** blockers”! end transmission

You like that s*** China?! You can block content all you want, but you’ll never stop the flow of information!

The Long Walk

2006-02-12T23:25:00.000-08:00

This evening HBW and I decided we’d walk together with the dogs. First we walked our German Shepherd Apollo, and then we walked our Boxer Kaiya.

Apollo always gets the shorter walk! He’s still a puppy and has the attention span of a squirrel, so my arm can only take so much before it gets ripped off! He does fairly well, but if he sees another dog around, all he wants to do is bolt off and play! I’m breaking him of this habit slowly but surely!

Kaiya’s walk was a little more interesting. I can’t stand walking the same way for each dog, so I have to take Kaiya in the opposite direction. This takes me through what I like to call “the inbred district”! We don’t have to go through the whole district though, just a small corner. This is where the interesting thing happened. I’ll try to explain in the best detail that I can, so you get a good feel of the situation.

We walked Kaiya to the last bit of “sane territory”, before we had to cross the road into “inbred district”, and then make our way from “inbred district” back over to “sane territory”! We have to cross over this way because any other way of crossing would land us a hefty fine for walking in a “NO DOG ZONE”!

We could clearly see that across the way in the “inbred district” that a lady was having an incredibly hard time keeping control of her extremely overweight Mastiff! This Mastiff could have been confused for a Shetland Pony had I not had 20/20 vision! This is typical over here though, so we thought nothing of it and crossed the road.

Well as soon as we got over to the “inbred district”, the lady started shouting obscenities at us in dutch! I played dumb to what she was saying, and we just kept on walking. Our dog didn’t care about the stupid Mastiff, so we kept going. Then the lady’s dog pulled her over to where we were standing to cross the road again to get back into the “sane territory”. The lady started shouting at us again, this time too loud and too fast for me to understand. I think she was speaking dialect, so I said “Het spijt me dame, mijn nederlands is niet goed”, “Kun je praat langzaam voor me”?! I’m sure you can understand that, but in case you can’t, it’s says “Sorry lady, my dutch sucks, can you talk slowly for me”?

Anyhow, she started shouting at us in horribly broken english! This was the definitive sign that we were dealing with a drunken dutch lesbian inbred! It’s fairly easy to spot a drunken dutch lesbian inbred with the shockingly white mullet, oversized gut, and midget-like shortness that they have, but to be absolutely positive you must hear their English! Most dutch speak excellent proper English, and these are the ones everybody from the english speaking world love to hang out with! Drunken dutch lesbian inbreeds however piece words together that don’t belong, i.e. “Fuck off wit yourself”!

So, she decided she was going to blame us for somehow “almost getting her dog killed” as she put it. We (HBW and I), sort of looked around at the abandoned road with a baffled look. Not a car in sight for light-years! Now, the Netherlands isn’t anything like New Mexico, but dammit if I didn’t spot a tumbleweed rolling across the car-less street. Perhaps thats what she was thinking would kill her dog, I mean after all, those tumbleweeds are known for their reckless deadly rolling!

Anyway, this is typical behavior of dumb humans throughout the world. Blame everybody else for your own problems. I think socialism breeds this attitude. This idiot inbred decides to blame up because her dog pulls her around.

Well, I decided that the best route for me to go was to hold my tongue. After all I am a guest in this country, so I’ll behave. I wanted to explain to her in a not so kind fashion that it was indeed her fault for not properly training her dog, and that if she couldn’t figure out a way to handle the dog that perhaps she could exchange it for a smaller more suitable breed. Or perhaps she could just shoot herself in the head and spare the rest of the planet her stupidity and inbred genetics.

HBW on the other hand decided that she’d had enough of the lady, and quickly put her in place! I think she did a fairly good job of it, and was glad I decided to hold my tongue. She gave this lady a verbal lashing that could only be compared to being body checked by the biggest toughest hockey player in the NHL!

When it was our time to move across the road back into the “sane territory”, we did! We just kept going at the pace we had gone all night, while the inbred kept shouting obscenities in our direction from the “inbred district”! We just kept on truckin’, and tossed up the middle fingers!

All is Well

2006-02-10T22:20:00.000-08:00

So, all’s well that ends well! Apparently my letter to HBW’s SNCOIC (Staff Noncommissioned Officer in Charge) got the ball rolling on the whole promotion ceremony!

Yesterday, as soon as HBW arrived at work, she received a phone call from her SNCOIC. I have very few details about the phone conversation that took place between the two of them, but what was made very clear to me was that he felt completely awful about the whole situation.

Anyhow, her SNCOIC is apparently upset because he now thinks that I picture him as a “shitty leader”! Huh? When I heard this, I was like “what the @#$% should he care what I think about his leadership, I’m just a dependent”! In any case, for the record, I don’t think think he is a terrible leader! Hey, we’re only human, and as so are prone to making a great many mistakes!

Today they held a promotion ceremony for HBW! The CO (commanding officer), 1st Sergeant, her SNCOIC (the recipient of my letter), and a handful of the company’s other NCO’s came to see her pinned Sergeant! I take it that my note struck a chord, because the 1st Sergeant came up from Darmstadt, Germany. Thats no joyous ride, at least not at this time of year!

Well, the promotion ceremony was fantastic! I along with another one of the company’s NCO pinned her Sergeant chevrons on! It made me damn proud, but admittedly I’m still a tad jealous because I never achieved the rank of Sergeant! Wish I could post a photo, but it's now been deemed classified by HBW! Damn, now I have to obey!

This Seems Wrong

2006-02-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

I just read this article on CNN.com! It's about Microsoft starting it's own Anti-Virus program called OneCare Live! To me this is kind of a bit funny. It seems as if Microsoft is purposely trying to steal your money. Don't understand?

Here's what I'm thinking. Microsoft sells you a crappy OS (like they always do), and it costs you a pretty penny! Now microsoft wants you to buy their Anti Virus software instead of McAffe or Norton to protect your Machine! Doesn't this seem a bit unfair to the competition? I mean, Microsoft did make the OS, and now they're making protection software for that very OS?

This begs other questions. Is Microsoft purposely selling a faulty Operating System, so that it forces consumers to buy "their" security program? Isn't it illegal to sell a faulty product? Lets face it they do recalls on cars all the time, for minor/major faults! Why is Microsoft even being allowed to enter this market in the first place? The advantage clearly goes to Microsoft, it's their damn OS!

Perhaps Microsoft should build a more stable OS, instead off trying to rob consumers by selling a faulty OS and then charging them to secure it!

Great Editorial!

2006-02-08T19:40:00.000-08:00

Sparkles4Ever sent this one to me! I couldn't have written it any better! Here it is... Cartoon Protesters Don't Whine When Civilians Are Butchered

Only a Matter of Time

2006-02-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

Well, it was only a matter of time before these Islamic idiots decided to attack something U.S.! I just didn’t expect it to be the Afghans! I mean after all, we just liberated them not to long ago!

I guess it’s as the Europeans (especially the Dutch) say “It’s in the past, it doesn’t matter”! This mentality explains why we had to save Europe twice!

Anyhow, I just read a report on CNN that says a few of these savages have been turned into swiss cheese by the Afghan police for trying to charge into a U.S. Base! Good on the Police! Glad to see they’ve got an itchy trigger finger!

This brings me directly to my next point...The UN and the EU are completely worthless! Here is a little piece of the CNN article I found interesting!

The head of the world's largest Muslim organization has joined U.N. and European Union leaders in condemning the violence.

Why does the UN or EU need the “worlds largest muslim organization” to join them in condemning the violence? Are other Arab countries not members of the UN? Why didn’t their ambassadors come on with Kofi? How can these idiots claim to be the “worlds largest muslim organization”, when we all can see the Islamofascists burning embassies and stoning churches are clearly the largest!

"We call on the authorities of all countries to protect all diplomatic premises and foreign citizens against unlawful attack," read a statement by U.N. chief Kofi Annan, EU foreign policy head Javier Solana and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Um, a tad late for the call out fellas! No really, lets face the facts here UN and EU, clearly there is no true authority in these countries in the first place. If there were, perhaps embassies would not have been burned down in the first place! For that matter, maybe if their governments had done something in the first place we wouldn’t have radical islam!

The three said they were "deeply alarmed at the repercussions" the cartoons have caused.

Again UN and EU, what the @#$% planet do you live on? Deeply alarmed at the repercussions? No wonder Americans no longer want to fund the UN! What, you guys thought Islam was a peaceful religion? We all know Muslims are as sensitive as a virgin having sex for the first time! It takes like 3 seconds to set these guys off! I swear, every time I’m watching the news, I think I’m watching Frankenstein! All I see are guys running around with torches! GOD WILLS IT!!!

"These events make the need for renewed dialogue, among and between communities of different faiths and authorities of different countries, all the more urgent. We call on them to appeal for restraint and calm, in the spirit of friendship and mutual respect."

This is what I’m talking about right here! This is the reason why the UN is useless! All dialogue and no action! Um, am I the only one on the planet that believes dialogue with these Islamo-assclowns has been over for a very very long time now? This statement here should cause the U.S. to pull all funding for the UN immediately! Dialogue is the reason Iran is jerkin’ you friggin morons around! When have the Arabs or the Persians ever shown they have any kind of “mutual respect” or “calm and restraint”? The only reason why they’re our “friends”, is because we make them filthy rich! Keep on calling on them UN and EU, you didn’t see any of their ambassadors at the conference!

NUFF SAID!

Even More Islamic Bullshit!

2006-02-06T22:20:00.000-08:00

Boy, these Islamic idiots really know when to pick and choose their battles! Here are a whole bunch of paintings and whatnot of Muhammad by Muslims, that are “supposedly forbidden” by Islam. Guess some Muslim didn’t get the memo!

Anyhow, here is a blog I think is worth your visit too! Great Artwork by D. T. Devareaux, and I might say...a little bit more powerful than the recent Danish Cartoons! This is one of D.T.'s pieces!

According to CNN.com these little torch parties they’ve been conducting have turned slightly deadly! Seems as though protesting and burning embassies wasn’t good enough for them!

Here is a good column by Steve Muscatello called "Monsters of the Arab street"! It really puts things into perspective as far as how Christians handle themselves in a civilized manner, while our "peacful religion" Muslims act like a bunch of uncivilized savages!

In Other News!

2006-02-06T00:25:00.000-08:00

I have just received news from my little sister (who is currently living in China), that my websites have been banned! Not just my regular bash everybody website,...but my cooking one too! I told her to check them out today, and she tried, but wasn't allowed to access them! DENIED BY THE RED AUTHORITY!

I know China bans websites everyday, but honestly I'm feeling more important now! I made China go out of it's way to block me! I'm not quite sure how, seen as how I've only bashed jihadist Islam and AAFES! I think maybe I offended their government with my shitty attempts at making chinese food! LOOK I'M TOTALLY SORRY I REALLY @#$%ED UP GENERAL TSO'S CHICKEN!

I really think they blocked my cooking website because if any Chinaman saw photo's of how I desecrated their "sacred" recipes, they would all light the torches and burn down US embassies around the world!

More Islamic Bullshit!

2006-02-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

Honestly, this is what not having an education makes you do! Again, it's ok to make fun of Jesus, Jews, and Christians and call for the destruction of Israel, but draw some nasty (yet true) comics about your prophet, and the torches come out!

Muslim Fury Burn

See what I mean about how stupid they're really getting! Islam isn't exactly picking up "Peaceful Religion" points! It's only a matter of time before a US Embassy is under attack. They'll come up with the excuse of "Well you didn't do enough to stop spread of these cartoons", and "You the Great Satan have let the Mother Jug-a-Rum bash the hell out of our stupidity"!

Would you feel better if the US urinated on and then flushed them down the crapper?

Let me just warn you ahead of time you primative creatures! You try to set any of our embassy ablaze, and the US Marines standing guard will turn you all into Swiss Cheese!

Lets Be Honest

2006-02-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

So, continuing yesterdays post about how most Muslims are really just a bunch of condescending little rats. I was reading an article today in the entertainment section of CNN.com (a.k.a. Pals of Islam), and I noticed this lovely piece!

Turkish Movie Depicts Americans as Savages

This is truly funny to me because (a) 10 minutes after reading this story CNN had pulled it from the entertainment section (thankfully not pulled from their archives...yet), and (b) so far I’ve heard no news of Americans up in arms, threatening to destroy anything Turkish!

You see, this is the kind of bull*hit I’m writing about! It’s ok for Muslims around the world to disparage American Troops, America, Jews, and Christians, but it’s never ever ok to say anything bad about them! Even if it’s the truth!

Well, I’m not afraid of these @#$%ing @$$holes, so here goes my list of things I’d like to see Muslims discontinue!

1. First off, I’d like you to stop burning our bibles. If you don’t like your Koran being flushed down the crapper, than I suggest you stop setting ours ablaze!

2. Honor Killings. This has really got to go! If you really want to be civilized, then act civilized by stopping this practice! Lets see here, how long has it been since Christianity had an honor killing? So long, I didn’t even know it existed, until I read a book written by a Muslim women called... Burned Alive!

3. I’d like you to stop with the P.M.S. (Panicked Muslim Syndrome)! Look o holy ones, not everybody is out to get you. But, if I can make a suggestion that could make things easier, than it would be this. Police your own! If you don’t like the image of Islam the violent terrorist thugs exude, then figure out a way to dispose of them. Otherwise, we’ll have to do it for you (as usual)!

4. Quit referring to us as the “Great Satan”! This is really annoying seen as how we’ve bailed your overly sensitive butts out of many a situation! Examples are as follows! Liberating Kuwait, Supplying arms to Afghan holy fighters during the Cold War, Liberating Iraq, Saving Bosnian Muslims from complete annihilation, Somalia, Liberating Afganistan once and for all! If you would like to know more about this, I suggest you Google it!

5. This is for the Moroccan Muslims living in France and burning cars! Could you stop this practice of setting cars ablaze, and take a step back and look at the situation you’ve gotten yourselves into? I doubt you can, so here is what would come to mind if you did! “Well, France used to run our country and left it after they bled it dry, and while they ran it, they treated my ancestors like shit”! “Um, why did I chose to migrate to a country that treated my ancestors like shit”? “What made me think they’d treat me any better”? “Damn, maybe I should stop burning cars and just leave this @#$%ing froghole”! Sounds like the best plan to me!

As Always, They're Upset!

2006-02-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

Fine, CNN.com doesn’t have the balls to show em, then I will! Here are the comics published in Denmark, that have Muslims all up in arms (as usual)! CNN won’t publish, because as they put it, “CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect to Islam”! Guess CNN didn’t want to get it’s studios blown up! I say “@#$% YOU CNN, and good on you Denmark”! Here's a great article about this "situation" written by Michelle Malkin!

Here’s a couple of questions for you (both CNN and Muslims)! When have you ever respected Christianity? When have you ever shown respect for our lord Jesus Christ? If as you say, the majority of muslims are peaceful, then how come they can’t seem to purge the minority terrorists from their society? Could this possibly be due to the fact that the majority of Islam is not very peaceful? The Palestinians have shown the world the true nature of Islam by willfully electing a terrorist organization into power! Religion of peace huh? Kill all Jews and wipe Israel off the map! Does that sound very peaceful?

Just a couple more questions now! How old is Judaism? How old is Islam? Yeah, Islam is kind of a baby compared to Judaism! So, who had the land first? Duh! THE JEWS!

Anyhow, I’m just a bit annoyed at this whole situation because CNN and all the other liberal news outlets want us to be extra sensitive to Muslims, but at the same time it’s all ok for them to say whatever they like about Jesus, Moses, and all Christians around the world!

WAKE UP CHRISTIANS!!!

Idiot Peanut Farmer!

2006-02-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

This guy is a @#$%ing moron! Give Hamas a chance? WTF planet is Jimmy Carter living on! It sure isn't Earth! He wants us to keep giving money to the Palestinians, even though the idiots voted a terrorist organization into power! I don't think so! Hamas will never every change their current policy of destroy all jews and Isreal as well!

Peanut!

Why won't this guy just go away!

The "10" List!

2006-01-31T00:05:00.000-08:00

Everybody else seems to be doing this on their blog, so I’m gonna do it too! It’s the “10 LIST”! In this post it’s gonna be M J-a-R’s 10 favorite science fiction/horror movies! Now this list really does change quite a damn bit depending on my mood, but for right now these are my current favorites!

10. War of the Worlds (the new one)! I actually really disliked this movie for the most part because of that annoying little girl! The only reason why I put it on my list is because of one scene that made me laugh so hard my lungs almost collapsed! It’s where Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning are in the basement with Tim Robbins, and he just won’t shut up (kinda like real life), so Tom has to bash his skull in! Absolutely fantastic!

09. Poltergeist! What a great movie! I remember seeing this flick for the first time on Dr. Paul Bearers Creature Feature on UPN when I was a smaller version of me! I fell in love with it instantly, and it remains on my list of favorites after all these years. I mean come on, who could forget the fight between the two neighbors because they keep changing each others TV stations!

08. Aliens! I’ll admit, I liked the original a whole bunch, but upon seeing the sequel it ended up being dropped from my “favorite” list! Let’s see what made it my favorite of the series. Um,...Space Marines, lots and lots of Aliens, Tons of corny one liners, and an “Artificial Human” being ripped in half by the QUEEN ALIEN! I really enjoy most of the one liners, but my favorite of the whole movie was when Ripley finds out Bishop was an android! Since he doesn’t need to eat anything, he offers Ripley his meal. She knocks the tray clear out of his hand in sudden rage, and one of the Marines say’s “Guess she doesn’t like the cornbread either”!

07. Friday the 13th (all of em)! These I saw on Creature Feature as well! I just love all the mayhem! It has no attachment value to it. You don’t leave the movie thinking “Gee, I’ve gotta save the whales now”, or “Oh My God, I’ve gotta feed the poor children of Upper Slabobia or they’ll all die”! No, you leave these movies feeling relieved, and less burdened by the events of the world!

06. Dawn of the Dead (original)! Holy @#$%ing crap, I saw this on Creature Feature too! I just love the campy feeling to it! When I was a kid, I could just picture myself running around that mall, and every time I see it now I think the same thing! What a great movie for a sick day! Always makes me feel a bit better!

05. They Live! Damn, I really did watch a ton of Creature Features as a kid! This is yet another movie I saw for the first time on Dr. Paul Bearers show! I loved this movie because (a) it was a pretty badass story, and (b) it had Rowdy Roddy Piper as it’s main star! I just love the fact that when he puts the glasses on, he sees all the subliminal messages we’re being force fed by the aliens! OBEY!

04. Starship Troopers! Just seeing Doogie Howser displaying how to effectively cripple a space bug in a fascist propaganda video was priceless! Plus Michael Ironside as a school teacher,...fantastic! Do You Want To Know More?

03. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan! Lets face it, this was the best Star Trek film ever made! KHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

02. Flight of the Navigator! This is when Disney could still make a decent motion picture. I fell in love with this the first time I saw it, and not because the Sex and the City chick is in it! I always, always wanted to be the friggin’ navigator! Flying that awesome space ship wherever the hell I wanted to go, and then stopping to take a piss in the middle of a cow pasture! Compliance!

01. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! It’s not nearly as good as the book, but still worth watching though! I just love how they did Marvin for the movie,...he’s spot on! I just can’t wait till they make the sequel, hopefully they’ll combine some of the books, because I’d really like to see what they can do with the “Fenchurch and Arthur Dent’s flying lovemaking above london!” or when Ford Prefect and Arthur are running through the jungles of prehistoric Earth chasing a teleporting red sofa!

AmericanWannabe + iPod = Destroyed!

2006-01-29T17:55:00.000-08:00

So, a new problem has surfaced! About a year ago or so, I sold my iPod to AmericanWannabe! For those who don’t know, AmericanWannabe is my Dutch neighbor-kid.

Anyhow, the iPod is now officially dead! No surprise to me, he seems to break everything computer related that he puts his little rat claws on! This isn’t the first time such a thing happened to his iPod, but it most certainly is the last time! The hard-disk is cooked!

I most certainly didn’t sell him a piece of crap! The iPod was only a year old, and I only sold it because I wasn’t really using it much anymore (no more Metro where I’m at now)! No, what’s happened to the iPod has been his own fault!

When I sold it to him, the iPod had about 1200 songs on it (most of which he liked). Instead of just keeping the iPod the way it was, he decided in his infinite wisdom to reformat it without the iPod software! Reformatting it using Windows XP no less! So basically he turned the iPod into an extremely expensive hard-drive for Windows!

Well, he took it to the Apple store in Maastricht and they fixed it for him for 40 Euros, but now it’s dead again. He took it back to the same Apple Store, and they told him he’d be better off just paying for a new iPod!

I could really care less wether his iPod is dead or not! No, thats not whats bothering me, but what is though is that I can see where all this is going! He’s gonna ask me for his money back sometime within the next day or so!

You see, last night I was called over to their house, and asked wether the iPod has a warranty or not! I politely said “it had a warranty, but it’s been out of warranty for a year of so now”. AmericanWannabe tried to tell me they sell products over here (in the Netherlands) with 3 year warranties, and that his iPod should still be under it! I was getting a bit angrier by this point, and I tried to explain to him (and also his parents), that an iPod is a computer product, and there is no way in hell any business is going to guarantee an electronic computer device for that friggin long! If that were the case, people would be turning their old stuff in and getting new stuff for free all the time!

Anyway, today AmericanWannabe came over with the iPod and asked if I’d take a look at it (for the 500th time since he’s had the it). I said “fine”, and plugged it into my Mac! It didn’t even register that the iPod was connected! It’s truly dead! As soon as I told him I believed it was beyond any hope, he started to say “Well...i paid you 110 Euros for it, and then I spent another 40 Euros to get it fixed, and 20 Euros to get a USB cord, I could have just gotten an iPod Nano instead”!

The iPod Nano didn’t even exist when I sold him my iPod over a friggin year ago! WTF, he’s nuts if he thinks I’m going to give him any money back, when he’s the one who destroyed the damn thing!

A Raise for M J-a-R

2006-01-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

So, sometime ago I spoke about how I took a sort of new job in this blog post! Anyhow, I didn’t really explain the situation all that well in my post. I’ll try to now, because there is some updated information.

Ok, to begin with, I used to be the Receiver for the Schinnen PXtra. When I was working in this AAFES facility there were a lot of changes happening. We had just gotten a new “general manager”(I believe thats what it is) by the name of Frank Niccoll, and he came with a bunch of "new" ideas for getting the AAFES facilities back in line!

Now, the PXtra wasn’t making enough money, so what do you think had to happen. Thats right, employees had to get hours cut, and some of them like myself had to be let go! That’s all fine and dandy for me, I didn’t have 6 months with the company and I was pulling in a decent days wage. It’s simple economics, no hard feelings. My big problem with the situation is that the PXtra in the end never really saved money by cutting my job position out.

A receiver was still needed for the facility, so instead of little old me doing the job, they ended up with the Main Stores Warehouse Foreman doing it. Oh did I mention that he gets paid a whole lot more than me, and secretly the PXtra was picking up the tab for his work there and at the Main Store? Also, under the PXtra managements nose, Main Store had another Receiver being paid by the PXtra without ever physically working in the facility! Pretty interesting, huh? Apparently this happened from the day I was let go till the PXtra got a new manager a couple of months ago. Now I believe they’ve taken the one Receiver off the PXtra payroll because he wasn’t really working in the facility! As for the Warehouse Foreman working at the PXtra, apparently he is only being paid by the PXtra facility for work done when he is actually there! Way to save money AAFES! Perhaps Stockman can elaborate on this a little bit.

Anyhow, as I said above, I was let go because I cost to much. Well AAFES is really the only game in town when it comes to work here, so I voluntarily took a downgrade in rank and pay to keep a job. Instead of being a Receiver, I’m now a “Food Service Worker”! My pay cut wasn’t extremely bad. I think it saved AAFES a whopping 20 cents an hour! WOW!

Well here’s the best part of the whole story, or what I’ve been working towards. I just received a pay raise of about 30 cents and hour! Now I’m making more money than what I had made in my former position, and AAFES is getting half the work out of me!

So, now I ask the question “Where did AAFES save any money”?

Damn Dirty Viruses!

2006-01-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

Oh, this cold is kicking my ass! I had to call sick to work again today. I thought I had defeated this nasty little bug on Saturday, but it’s back with a vengeance! Actually, I think it’s in it’s final phase now, it’s last ditch effort to survive! It’s certainly giving my body a run for it’s money! My friggin’ nose is still clogged, but what’s happened now is I’ve gotten a small upper chest infection. Damn it hurts so badly! I’ve been coughing so much, now I’ve got a splitting headache! Every time I cough it feels like a small explosion takes place inside of my skull! Ugh, time for me to go back to bed!

Feeling Better, and Worse!

2006-01-21T22:20:00.000-08:00

So, Tae Kwon Do was pretty awesome today. The gentleman I had over for a BBQ the other day is the assistant instructor for the class. His name is Jeroen, (sounds like Juh-rune) and he had been teaching the Saturday classes, but now our Master is teaching it again!

Anyhow, classes have been getting more intense lately. We (Jeroen and I) have been training extremely hard! We really kicked the crap out of each other today, more so than what we’ve been doing lately! I don’t know what it is with us lately, we just have the desire to train harder and harder, and push our bodies as far as they can possibly go. This is kind of causing a rift between us and some of the other black belts in the class. It seems like they’re just at training to spar and talk amongst each other, and we’re at training to harden our bodies, and refine our techniques! Because we train so hard, the others don’t want to train with us (like sparring, and hap ki do training).

An example of this is Thursdays class, when Jeroen and I were defending against knife attacks. A few of the other black belts were just standing around talking or doing the techniques half heartedly, while Jeroen and I were busting ourselves up attacking each other at full speed, and defending ourselves with all the skill we could muster! We were loud, we were crazy, and what we were doing was extremely dangerous. It was some seriously awesome training! I’m really surprised we didn’t break each others arms that day! Anyway, at the end of class on Thursday, the others decided that they were gonna talk a little shit about us, because we were being so loud and crazy.

Well, none of them showed up for todays class. Oh well, no loss to my training. Anyway, Jeroen and I were at it again! We were doing some seriously rough training on the knife defense techniques. My arms are so sore from being twisted, yanked, punched, kicked and kneed to death! Thats ok though, because Jeroen’s arms are just as @#$%ed up!

Ok, I’m having a bit of a tough time typing because I’m so damn sore. I think I’m just gonna end this post here! Kind of a crappy ending, oh well!

I Was Very Wrong!

2006-01-21T19:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought I wasn’t sick on Weds and Thursday when I decided I needed a breather from work! I just felt downright exhausted, so I called off so I could sleep! Boy was I wrong about just being exhausted! I woke up for the first time on Friday morning to go to work, and my throat felt like somebody jammed sandpaper down it! Not only that, but my nose was so stuffed, it felt like someone shoved those stupid carrot looking candy’s up it!

On normal occasions I would have just called off of work again, but AAFES requires a doctors note on the third day (in a row) off (I find it kind of annoying that AAFES requires this, considering it’s my earned sick leave. If I wanna take it I shouldn’t need a doctor’s note). Anyhow, it’s really a pain in the ass to go and see a doctor for a stupid note to bring to my pain in the ass boss. Obviously if I’m calling in sick it means I don’t feel good enough to go to work, so what makes AAFES think I want to drive to the hospital for a doctors note saying what I already know “M J-a-R has the common cold”, duh! Whatever though, this is just typical AAFES crap! When I was hospitalized (for more than 3 days) to fix my 3 hernia, I was warned by Stockman that AAFES management had discussed firing me for not showing up. This happened even though I had told my boss that I had to get the emergency surgery! Oh well, what’s done is done, and I dragged my sick self into work.

Anyhow, it’s in the past, and today I’m feeling quite a bit better. My throat is a bit less sand papery, but my nose is still @#$%ing clogged! I’m still quite a bit sluggish, but I’m going to go to Tae Kwon Do this morning to hopefully sweat it all out!

Oh, it looks like I’ve only got about an hour till TKD training, so I’d better get the dogs out for their morning walk!

Sleeper of a Day

2006-01-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Today was quite a sleeper. I was able to see the Sun for about 20 minutes in total! This morning, I had to wake up a couple hours before the Sun came over the horizon to take HBW to work, then I came home walked the dogs, fed them and went straight back to bed.

I set the alarm for 0830 so I’d get up and be to work on time. Well, the alarm went off and I decided that I needed some more sleep. I called the kitchen, but nobody answered the phone, so I said “@#$% it” and went back to sleep.

A short while later (can’t give an exact time), I received a phone call from my boss. He seemed a bit annoyed that I wasn’t at work. He said “Hey, Jar, are you forgetting something?”. The first thought that came to mind was “@#$% yeah asshat, my awesome dream, thanks for waking me up”! Instead though, I told him that I had attempted to call earlier but nobody answered the phone, and I fell asleep again. I also told him I didn’t feel good, and I wasn’t coming in! He was cool with this, after all I do have the sick leave to use.

Anyhow, I know what I did today was completely wrong, but I just really wanted some sleep! I don’t know what came over me, I never do stuff like this! I don’t care for my current job what-so-ever, but it’s a paycheck so I do the work. Very weird, but I can tell you one thing, I feel really recharged!

Well, after my bosses phone call, I went back to sleep again! Another call came at around 1400 (I know this because I looked at the clock), but I decided not to answer it, and went back to sleep again! Another call came in, and I decided to answer this one, and it was HBW wondering where the hell I was, and why I hadn’t picked her up from work yet! I asked her what time it was and she yelled “1630”! I was like “OH SHIT”!

It’s such a weird feeling when you look at the clock and it says 1400, and the next thing you know it’s 1600 but it only felt like a second! Damn I hate that feeling!

Anyway I quickly jumped into some pants and a shirt and dashed out of the house like a madman and jumped in the car. This is the first of Sun I’d seen all day! I drove about 10 minutes to her work and picked her up. She didn’t seem really pissed off at me, and thats a good thing. We drove to the nearest base, picked up our mail, and came home. By this time the Sun had already left the sky, and it was getting dark outside!

So, now that I’ve cooked dinner, had a good conversation with HBW, and written in my blog, I think I’m gonna head back to bed again!

Narnia VS Deathbecomesher: Comments Title Match

2006-01-18T01:45:00.000-08:00

Ladies and Gentlemen of the BlogWorld, welcome to “The Mother Jug-a-Rums” blog Main Event,...the World Heavy Weight ”comments” Title Match of the Month! Tonight’s match-up is going to be absolutely brutal!

In our first corner, we have in the navy blue speedos with golden leather cowboy chaps, weighing in at an impressive 60 IQ with a record absolute shit for wins, the master of jibber-jabber, the pony man himself, NARNIA!

In the opposite corner, wearing a jet black unitard with a gigantic iron-on CareBear patch, weighing in at a massive 120 IQ we’ve got the Queen of Goth, the Death Vixen herself, DEATHBECOMESHER!

LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE

Tonight’s match-up will be refereed my none other than the host himself, The Mother Jug-a-Rum!

The Fighters are approaching the center of the Ring!

M J-a-R: Ok written language warriors, now I’ve already laid down a couple of rules at the weigh-in and press meet, but I’d like to get a couple more out of the way.

1. I want a dirty fight! If you have brass knuckles, I suggest you put them on! Foul language will be tolerated, low blows will be allowed, and sucker punches are a go!

2. You are allowed to take shots at the ref (that would be me), but be forewarned, I will knock your @#$%ing pansy asses out if you do!

3. There are no judges at present, but I’m hoping that perhaps the person from Santa Ana California that comes to my blog often would like to take the job! I’m hoping Nancy will be a judge too. But in the case it turns out nobody will take the judge job, then I’ll make the decision!

4. There will be 10 rounds, and if it gets really boring...I’ll throw in the damn towel early! Each round will go as such.
A) one person writes a comment, and then the other counter attacks.
B) end of round after a the counter-attack
C) at this point judges will grade the attacks.
D) after attacks graded I will post a comment starting a new round.
E) I said I wanted a dirty fight, so @#$% what I just wrote, I want you to brawl!

Thats all I have for you at this time,...return to your corners and when the bell rings, come out swinging like a Silverback Gorilla!

Ding Ding...

LETS GET IT ON!

Give Me My Money Back!

2006-01-16T03:00:00.000-08:00

Well, all things seem to be going pretty good (as a family) for HBW and I right now. We’ve managed to save up a sizable chunk of money, we’re going to be parents soon, and HBW just got promoted to Sergeant! Admittedly though, I’m a bit jealous of her being promoted to the rank of Sergeant, because I couldn’t even manage to get promoted to that rank in the Marine Corps. Aside from my jealousy, all things “family” are going great!

Education matters on the other hand are going terrible! I’ve run into a bit of a problem. A couple of weeks ago, I went to the University of Maryland Europe office and signed up and paid for the “Basic Astronomy” course and also the lab that goes with it. The two classes cost me about 629 USD, and the books about 140 USD. As much as you’d think I’d be upset that I’ve been legally robbed of my hard earned money, I’m surprisingly not. No, what I’m furious about is on Friday after I arrived home from work I played a message on my answering machine left by the University of Maryland Europe, stating that I couldn’t take the “Basic Astronomy” course until I had completed “Math 102”!

My jaw hit the @#$%ing floor! They waited 3 days before the class (not to mention they gladly excepted my 769 something dollars as well) before they told me I couldn’t go! WTF is that all about! What they’re telling me, is that they’re not satisfied with the 769 dollars I already gave them, they want me to spend another 500 on their “basic Math”! I most certainly don’t need their “Basic Math” course to know that I’m being @#$%ed out of my money! Legalized Consumer Fraud is what it really is!

So, now I’ve got to march over to the local UMUC Europe office tomorrow and bitch at them to get my money back. They must think I don’t know anything about astronomy! Um, you stupid jackasses, I’m a backyard astronomer! I can practically find all the planets blindfolded (pluto I can’t, it’s to far and too dark)! “Basic Math”, for what? It’s “Basic Astronomy” not “Astrophysics”! Damn, I can’t believe these @##holes get away with this stuff!

Oh well, enough bitching for now, I want to enjoy my dinner!

I'm Gonna Be a Father!

2006-01-11T00:10:00.000-08:00

M J-a-R is gonna be a FATHER! OH SHIT, WHO THE HELL AUTHORIZED THIS PROCREATION! We (HBW and I) found out week ago, but I had to make sure all the parents and family were informed before writing it to the rest of the world!

So, last Wednesday (I think), Hot Babe Wife kept getting sick and was complaining of breast pain. I half jokingly said “ah, you’re pregnant”, which was followed by her quick jab “oh just shut the @#$% up” (although this response may sound awful to you cyber-folk, I hear it quite often and take no offense. Hey, I know who the breadwinner is, and if I have to take a couple of “shut the @#$% up” jabs to the face for an awesome steak dinner, then I turn the other cheek often. It’s not being whipped, it’s called being smart)! Anyhow, this was then followed by “Well if you really think I’m pregnant, then you’ll go out and get the test”! Well I did so quite promptly!

B.T.W. I can’t believe these @#$%ing E.P.T. tests were so damn expensive! I just grabbed a box and dashed for the check-out without looking at the price sticker, and when the dude at the register scanned them in, I almost passed out. Here I am thinking it’s gonna be 5 bucks, and it turns out they’re actually $13.95! Damn, you’d think I was at a Turkish Market with prices like that!

Ok...moving on!

Well, HBW took the first test (two tests come in each package for all those guys out there who never knew this, but always wanted too), and then called me up to see what it said! POSITIVE! It was there in the circle, a gigantic plus sign! I was right, HBW was pregnant! HBW absolutely hates the fact that I’m always right, so her response was “I don’t believe it, it’s a false positive”! OK, I can play along with this non-sense, I just whipped out the other 99% accurate E.P.T., and made her take that one too! Gee, I wonder what the results were,...duh! You guessed it, the second test came out positive. Her response was “Oh this explains a bit”!

We scheduled an appointment to see our family Doctor the following day. He ordered blood-tests to verify that yes indeed HBW was pregnant. I didn’t really think she needed the test, but she still didn’t really believe she was pregnant. Well the bloodwork never lies, and it came back a resounding positive! She had to accept it then!

HBW is about 6 or so weeks pregnant, and we go to our local hospital sometime next month for the first ultrasound and listening to the heartbeat. I told the insurance guys that I didn’t feel comfortable with Dutch doctors seeing my wife because of what they “didn’t” do for me in the past. This link will explain why. German Doctors=Problem Solved I can't give an exact link to the post, so you'll have to scroll down to it. While you're at it though, go ahead and read everything, but start with the one I've listed here!

I personally wanted HBW to see German doctors, but was just given a funny look when I suggested this. I not sure that was a yes or a no, but we’re going to our local hospital here in the NL, so I’ve taken that as a “NO”! I think the insurance guy was a Dutchman...oops!

Anyhow, I’ve been cooking really good meals lately (not because HBW is pregnant, but because I promised myself a hot meal every night), but HBW has been to sick to really eat anything. Every time she eats something, half of it comes back up! So lately it’s been just me eating. Tonight was no exception. I just had some mushroom soup, and a salad today!

And finally, I’ve got some time to sit down today and relax and write something! Thanks for listening!

M J-a-R

Good Times at M J-a-R's

2006-01-07T22:30:00.000-08:00

Today I invited a couple of my dutch friends over for a BBQ! Hey, here is a pic of them (hope they don't mind)!

We had ribs, fries, and HBW had some chicken! All the food was stellar! We all talked about politics, America, Holland (limburg too), and of course Tae Kwon Do!

Afterwards, when our guests left for the evening, HBW and I took the German Shepherd out for a bit of a run. He absolutely loves to play catch! We did this for about an hour or so, and then returned home.

As soon as I stepped foot on our property, the neighbor kid American-Wannabe came sprinting over! I thought to myself “Oh what the @#$% do you want now”! Turns out, he had a good idea for an evening snack! He had a package of about 15 frikandellen, and he wanted to know if we could fry them up in my badass Dual Daddy Deep Fryer! I haven’t had a frikandel in a long time and I only need the smallest excuse to turn the fryer on, so I said “Hell Yeah let’s do it”!

I started frying some frikandellen as soon as American-Wannabe came over at 8pm! The power system in the garage is so weak, that often when I plug the 1600 watt fuse box in, the circuit breaker kicks! It did it to me twice tonight! Other than that, all went great, and we feasted on at least 10 of them before getting sick to our stomachs!

M J-a-R the Cook

2006-01-05T22:45:00.000-08:00

Well, I've decided that instead of posting all of my cooking exploits on this blog, I'd just create another blog dedicated to just one of my many passions! So, if you're ever interested in seeing some of my masterpieces, visit my new site! M J-a-R the Cook

Jug!

Out with the Old, In with the New

2006-01-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Or not? I don’t know how any of your new year celebrations went, but I can tell you mine was pretty fun!

This year I decided to have a BBQ to celebrate the end of the old and beginning of the new year! Many of my neighbors that knew of my plan for New Years, thought it was crazy. After all, it was 3 degrees below (Celsius) and snowy on Friday 30 Dec! That garbage didn’t faze me at all! There could have been 10 feet of snow outside, and I still would have wheeled my bad-ass grill out of the garage! In the end though, the weather was much better the following day (better for the Netherlands)! The temperature outside rose a few degrees within an evenings time, and all the snow had melted away!

I invited my Scottish neighbor Braveheart and his family over for the ribs I was cooking! The last time Braveheart and I had a BBQ, we discussed a different way to cook ribs. The idea that was suggested sounded pretty good, so I decided to try it out this time around. Not that it was necessary at all for me to change my style of cooking ribs, I just figured if something else works even better I’d might as well try it!

The idea for the ribs was to wrap them up in some form of plastic (cling-wrap, ziplock bag), and then wrap them in aluminum foil! It sounded like it would work really well. When I cook ribs, I usually just wrap them in aluminum foil, but I tend to loose a lot of juice and so the meat sometimes tends to be a little dry. It sure seemed like a bulletproof way to lock the juices into the meat.

Holy crap were we completely wrong about using cling-wrap! I cooked the ribs for about 4 hours on a temp of 300 degrees Fahrenheit! When I took the ribs off the grill and pulled off the aluminum foil, I just looked at Braveheart and said “Oh Fuckin’ A”! The cling-wrap had completely melted, and then fused itself to the ribs! Oh man, I truly destroyed those ribs!

Normally I would have been really pissed off at myself for doing something stupid like that, but I’d already downed about 6 beers and was feeling way to good! Also, I had set up a reserve food just in case this type of situation did happen! HBW got me a deep fryer for Christmas, so the night before the BBQ I prepared two different types of chicken wings (Southern, and Cajun)! Boy, am I damn glad I did that!

The wings were an absolute success! Not that its hard to screw up when you’re cooking with a fryer! After I finished with the wings, I threw in some mozzarella sticks! They were a pretty big hit too! Braveheart, HBW and I absolutely loved them! Bravehearts kids only got the wings and potato chips. They didn’t care though, they were having to much of a blast playing Mario Kart on my huge 42” widescreen plasma TV!

After we were all finished eating, we went outside and threw a few fire-crackers around. Our other neighbors living in the house next to ours (which happens to be attached to our house) came outside and invited us over for some beer and snacks. Braveheart and I were inside their house as soon as we heard the word “BEER”! I had already downed about 9 Coors before we went into the neighbors house (I’m not exaggerating), and as far as I can remember I drank 4 more “Alfa” beers in their house! Alfa beer is locally brewed and is in a much larger bottle than Coors, but not quite as large as a 40 oz. I was pretty damn messed up by the time midnight came around!

Honestly, my memory is kind of spotty at this point! I remember going outside 5 minutes before mid-night and throwing fireworks! I know that I blew up one of my Coors beer bottles with a firework! At the time, I didn’t think the firework was strong enough to blow the bottle to bits, but this morning I was informed by another neighbor 2 houses down that he had glass fragments in his garden! If I remember correctly, I’m almost positive HBW was pissed at me for blowing up the bottle. Oh yeah, she made me get the broom out of the garage and sweep the road!

After the 30 minute light show outside, we went back into the neighbors house and finished our beers! I stumbled 10 feet to my home, and HBW helped me up the stairs and tossed my sorry laughing heap into bed!

Ah, what a way to usher in the NEW YEAR!

M J-a-R has a Narnia Fanatic

2006-01-02T13:30:00.000-08:00

Check out what this psycho whack-job has been leaving in the comments section of my "California Bad, Florida Good" post! Some of them are kinda funny they're so out there!

M J-a-R

narnia said...
im going to see narnia. its a good movie and ther will be more. narnia isnt a movie for bad people. its a disney film. i think every one needs to see narnia. narnia has a lion in it. i hope ther are more things in it. do you??? i write more later.

11:53 AM

narnia said...
narnia is a movie about good and bad.the lion is the king of the good. i herd the lion is bush or god but the tv say its jesus. im confused. narnia is is a movie about war. is it ok to fight bad people. i think you dont hurt other people but narnia says its ok if ther bad. dos this mean that war with bad people is good and we will win. when we win what happens to the bad people. and when we win ther is no more bad people. dos any one no narnia. i need to reed more to see.

12:29 PM

narnia said...
in narnia everyone had weapons. they had war to protect ther familys. ill bet if they had guns they would use them. so if the lion is bush god or jesus then narnia tells me its ok to fight.is that right. i dont know about the people that did not fight in narnia but i think ther all ded. is this the same. i hav a lot of thinks on my mind now.do you hav to be big to fight or can you be littel. im not littel but the sanfrancisco town dosnt sound good becus they wont fight for ther lion.i got to go someone is calling me.

11:40 AM

narnia said...
i went to macdonalds. i got a narnia happy meal and Lucy Pevensie came with it. that made me happy. shes one of the good narnia people and she talks english so she must be good. she holds a book but i dont no what it is. dos anyone else like narnia. i think i no who she is. mabe she nos tkd but she dosnt no dutch.

9:30 AM

narnia said...
i went back to macdonalds four supper. i got a narnia happy meal and Tumnus came with it. he looks like the devil or osama benladen. i think he looks like that to make you think that looks dont meen anything about the inside people.what do you think. he also has lots of hair on his legs and head. he talks english so he must be good i think. you can blow in his back and he makes a tweeeet tweeeeeet.i dont have the lion yet so i hav to eet at macdonalds again. my friend nancy nos narnia but sometimes she thinks im dum. but i no things.if everybody looked like Tumnus we dont need shoes and cant wair pants or hats. i wear a hat. dos anybody else wair any of thees things. i like guns now. ther like god because they make eveybody the same. if you dont have som then you cant help yur family or freinds. i got to go to bed now

11:56 AM

narnia said...
its hard to find the narnia writing now. thers so much other stuff here now. i think narnia has a lot to do with whats been writen here. i think lucy in narnia might be like ann. what do you think. narnia is important to rush also. he might be like tumnus. mabe. what do you think.shold i writ somwher else or is here ok to talk about narnia. what do you think about narnia. i need to see what you say now.

9:21 AM

narnia said...
narnia. narnia. i saw narnia. it was good. i rite more later on it.narnia wasnt like i thought it was.what do you think about narnia. its nice to talk to everyone about narnia.

6:27 AM

narnia said...
i saw narnia. in narnia i think the lion is like bush and the withc is like osama benladen. they fight in the mountains and the bad guys look funny and dont talk english so they must be the elqieda.i dont think its wrong to fite. the big narnia animal thats like a horse and man together is like rumsfield. i wish the good guys had a big bomb to drop on the witches castle in narnia.that would be good.i sat next to some moslams in the narnia movie when i went to it.they thought it was a kids movie but i told them all about narnia.i dont think they believed me until after the narnia movie and then they could see how bad some people were. what do you think. narnia started in the winter but because of good it became summer. tumnus in narnia was funny and im glad hes not hert bad. i think hes like rush. dont you think so. lucy in narnia was my favorite. shes like ann. but maybe its her older sister. which one do you think. narnia makes you think.im glad lucy let all the good people live and didnt help the bad people in narnia.ill bet if a newspaperman had been ther hed write a big story about that and how lucy let all the bad people die. what do you think about narnia. its good to talk to people about narnia and here what they think.

9:32 AM

narnia said...
i thought a lot about narnia. i like susan. shes the best. shes also a babe. maybe shes more like ann. ann is a babe to. peter was ok. watch out for edmond i think he might be bad but i dont no. i think thers something about the perfesser that i dont know. he might be important in the next narnia movie. what do you think. its really nice to come here and talk about narnia with all my friends. i think the narnia white witch is dead now. dont you. i got to go now and clean up my room.

4:19 AM

narnia said...
i was looking for narnia stories and found out some intresting story on the computer. in narnia the witch was killed by the lion. is this targeted selective decapitation. i think this mite be a good idea. what do you think. when the witch died the war stopped. dos this meen that when osama benladen is killed the war will stop. it didnt stop when sadam husain was cought but he wasnt killed either. i think it mite be harder to think about than this. narnia is diferent but is the same. what do you think. i think its almost the new year and i want to tell all my friends here happy new year.

Liberals Within the Military

2005-12-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

I purchased the Stars and Stripes today, and decided to read the Letter to the Editor section. In it there was an opinion by Mark L. Warren. It was called "Coulter, others peddle lies." It was yet again another example of liberal stupidity! It pissed me off so much, that I shot back a counter opinion to Stars and Stripes! Here is a link to this idiotic opinion.

Coulter, others peddle lies

Here is what I wrote back to the Editor of Stars and Stripes. I highly doubt they'll publish it because it's a tad bit over their 300 word limit. It doesn't matter though, because I'm publishing it myself. Oh, I sent this to Ann Coulter too, I hope she reads it!

Setting the Record Straight on “Coulter, others peddle lies” Opinion

Once again another liberal has a baseless opinion! Mr. Mark L. Warren accuses Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh of peddling lies. This has become the oh so typical norm for the Democratic party.

Lets get a few things straight here and now!

You referred to these three people above (and in turn all conservative commentators) as thugs. I’m not entirely sure that was the correct word for you to use. Perhaps investing in a dictionary would have helped out a little bit. According to the dictionary, a “thug” is an aggressive and violent young criminal. I don’t think any of these people you’ve mentioned fit that profile. On the other hand, I do know some Democrats who certainly act the part! For instance, college students/socialists in training who heckle, jeer and throw pies at conservative speakers because they give an opinion that doesn’t agree with their marxist philosophy!

By the way, while we’re on the subject of opinions, lets get another one of your “lies” corrected. I’ll quote you on this one Mark. “A “view” can only exist where there is mutual respect”. Again Mark, a dictionary would have really helped out! The definition for view is: An individual and personal perception, judgment, or interpretation; an opinion! Nowhere within the bounds of that definition does it say “Mutual Respect” required for a view to exist! Just for the fun of it though, let’s say your “view” is correct about this, and it can’t exist without mutual respect. By that account Democrats like yourself, have already violated your made-up definition. How’s this possible? By heckling, jeering, and throwing pies at those who give a different view than your own. Perhaps you could remind Howard Dean about this “mutual respect” thing before he starts to scream his rhetoric and lies about conservatives!

About the column Ann Coulter wrote, “We like you, John! We, really, really like you!”, you stated that Ann was attempting to smear Rep. John Murtha’s military service. Were we reading the same column? She didn’t smear or try to smear Murtha, he did quite a good job of this on his own. She was simply stating the facts! Republicans jumped on the praise bandwagon for a man who’s opinion was clearly out in left field! She questioned this mindset, not Murtha’s military service. She most certainly wasn’t comparing Murtha to George Rockwell! What she wrote was “Speaking of which, George Lincoln Rockwell, former head of the American Nazi Party, served in the military during World War II. Are we obligated to praise his war service before disputing his views?” You see, nowhere did she compare Murtha to Rockwell in that quote. Instead, like I stated before, she is questioning the mindset. Let’s face it, when will a Democrat give that same kind of “Mutual Respect” to his/her conservative counterpart?

Another problem with your opinion Mark, is you stated that the press has labeled Liberals as mythical beings who seem to be everywhere and are bent on the destruction of the United States, who run the military down. What press are you referring too? It’s certainly not the New York Times or Washington Post! They would never in a million years say that about a Democrat. If anybody is bent on the destruction of the United States and her military, it most certainly is the socialist left. Why else would the New York Times sit on the domestic wiretap story until just before the Patriot Act was supposed to be renewed? Why else would CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC plaster John Murtha's view that we should jump ship in Iraq everywhere, while Sen. Liebermans (a fellow Democrat) view that we should stay the course in Iraq was just a blip on the radar? Oh, remember that little lie Newsweek decided to write about? You know, the one about service members urinating and flushing the Koran down the toilet in Gitmo, which later after the damage had already been done was retracted! Yeah, thats the article that started riots in the muslim world and put our military service members lives in danger. Not once in any column I have read by Ann Coulter, has she slandered, libeled, or put our troops lives in danger with anything she has written, unlike your friends at Newsweek, CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS, New York Times, and Washington Post!

Speaking of the press, it’s a pity Mark that while living in your own fantasy world you can’t see that the main stream media will always slander, libel and put our troops lives in danger, because they don’t really care about them. All they want is the “story” ,whether it’s right or wrong!

M J-a-R
U.S. Marine

Christmas Day Part 2!

2005-12-26T13:45:00.000-08:00

So, continuing with the tale...

My Mom-in-Law sent us a whole bunch of stuff too. I know what HBW got, but I’m not gonna say. Why? Because this is my blog, and it’s all about ME! Hey, Christmas is done and over, I can be as selfish as I want again!

Ok, so my M-i-L got me some pretty interesting things for Christmas this year. The first of many interesting things is “Pappy’s Sauce for Sissies”! Then there is the “20 Questions” gizmo, a travel guide for Turkey, and a Suitcase! I think my M-i-L is trying to tell me something,...hmmm!

The Sauce is my favorite gift though. I like spicy hot stuff, and I think this is gonna be a fireball in my mouth! Here is a picture.

I just love the little caption at the bottom of it, just underneath the baby face. It says “Suggestions for Ordering: Say “Gimme the Sissie Sauce”---Say it like a man. See, it don’t sound so bad that way.”

The “20 Question” thing was pretty cool. The little device asks you 20 questions...duh, and if it guesses what you’re thinking of, it wins. If it guesses wrong, it asks 5 more questions, and if it guesses wrong again you win! You win absolutely nothing except the satisfaction that you outsmarted an inanimate object! It works pretty good for the most part. It guesses correctly what you’re thinking about 70 percent of the time. If it is something dirty you’re thinking about, at around question 18 the little gizmo comes on with a message like “Oh my, I can’t believe your thinking of something like that”! It gave me this reply when I was thinking of (1) Object: Breasts (2) Mineral: Uranium, and (3) Unknown: Beer! The items I beat it with were, a phoenix, an alligator, toothpick, and an ox. It came close on the Ox one though by saying a Cow, but that wasn’t what I was thinking, so I WIN!

Anyhow, HBW invited over a couple of her coworkers for dinner. She cooked a 10 pound Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn, and an Oreo pie! Only one of the coworkers showed up, because the other somehow got sick. That was fine by me though, because the less people, the more food there is to go round!

The Turkey was fantastic, as was the rest of the meal! When we all ate our fill, we sat down on the sofa’s and played some video games on my Gamecube! All in all it was a pretty good Christmas!

Christmas Day!

2005-12-26T00:05:00.000-08:00

Christmas was pretty good this year! We finally didn’t spend a fortune on everybody else in the family! We just sent everybody in our family a photo of HBW, and I! Oh, we had to send some German chocolate back to the States as well, but we were paid back for that.

Anyhow, this year for Christmas I purchased a couple of books and a video game for HBW! One of the books is “At First Sight” by Nicholas Sparks, and the other is “The Divide” by Nicholas Evans (I think this is the guy that wrote “The Horse Whisperer”). The video game I picked up is called “Frogger”! She’s been bugging me about this game for sometime now, so with a little snooping in the “cheap game” bin I found it and purchased it!

HBW got me a whole bunch of Chicago Cubs stuff this year! A hat, sweatshirt, and t-shirt all emblazoned with the Cubbies logo! Thank god too, because my two other Cub items were (a) eaten by my dog and (b) torn up by our cat!

To be honest though, I’m not really a big fan of wearing sports apparel because the teams themselves, for the most part are full of crap. Lets face it, it’s your tax dollars that fund their stadiums they play in, yet they charge you 50 dollars for nose-bleed seats, 5 dollars for a hotdog, and the same for a small beer! WTF, it was my tax dollars that gave you assholes a home, you should treat me like a GOD! It’s Christmas and I don’t want to get into political/business talk, because I’ll only become more enraged, so I’ll stop right now!

Moving on with the story! I am not from Chicago! Many of you are probably wondering “How the hell is this guy a friggin’ Cubs fan then”?! Well, it’s simple really, my Dad’s from the windy city! We used to always watch Cubbies play on WGN when I was growing up! It was a weekend thing for us. We’d watch Creature Feature with Dr. Paul Bearer in the morning, and then we’d watch a cubbies games in the afternoon! It was awesome! We always new the outcome of a game,...a loss, but it didn’t matter though, because we were having a damn good time.

Thats why I wear cubs apparel. Not because I’m a sucker like most idiot fans “rockin” the throwback shit, but because the Cub’s logo means more than just the “team” to me. It’s about great memories. Every time I put my Cubs gear on I’m reminded of the good times I’ve had with my father. And when another cubs fan walks past me “rockin” his/her Cubs gear, we just give a smile and a nod to one another. There’s no need for words, because he/she is wearing the colors for the same reason,...Good Times!

GO CUBBIES!!!

Moving on...again!

The other thing I got from HBW was a “Presto DualDaddy” electric deep fryer! Apparently a lot of the guys she works with made jokes about it. The one she told me was “Geez, getting a guy a fryer is like a guy getting his wife a vacuum cleaner for christmas”! I got a kick out of it.

Anyhow, I just had to use the thing TODAY! So I put the peanut oil in it, and plugged it in. Now, it’s a 120v product, so I had to use a fuse box in order to get it to work. I assumed a 300 watt box would provide enough juice to it, but I turned out to be extremely wrong! I didn’t blow the power out of the house like I did when I ran over the electric cord to the lawnmower a few months back, but I did really damage the 300 watt power box. Did I say damaged? What I meant to say was I melted the damn thing! I honestly didn’t expect that to happen! I went in for a minute, and I came out and the thing was smoking and sort of melted. It really reeked! Well, to make sure that that type of situation didn’t happen again, I broke out the 1600 watt fuse box that HBW picked up at her workplace! It did the trick, and finally after an hour of running around, I made myself some damn tasty curly fries!

To Be Continued...

Month 3, Month 6

2005-12-24T01:25:00.000-08:00

This is an answer to the comment left by Nancy on the "November Snow" post. YES!, he absolutely loves to attack snowballs when you throw them! And you're absolutely right too, he is getting friggin massive! Here are some photo's! I tried to recreate the original 3 month pose at 6 months so you could get a better idea of how big he really has gotten in 3 months time. Hope you enjoy!

A Fantastic Column by Steve Muscatello

2005-12-20T14:50:00.000-08:00

I couldn't have written anything better about this subject than what this gentleman wrote, so I'll just give you a link!

"Torture," Patriot Act:Costs of Freedom

Sorta Good Day, Sorta Bad Day

2005-12-19T18:01:00.000-08:00

Well, today was a fairly great day for me. I accomplished something that I didn’t expect. I completed 90% of my christmas gift shopping for my wife! Believe me, this is no easy task. I know exactly what she wants, and whatever it is (I’m not telling,...cough...HORSE...cough) it most certainly is not within our budget.

I settled for the more practical route, and purchased fairly cheap useful things for her. Things I know that as soon as they’re opened, won’t end up on a shelf to collect dust. I can’t tell you what they are until after christmas though, because I sometimes get spied on by HBW!

I am though, quite annoyed at the fact that HBW (Hot Babe Wife) spent 150 dollars on a Christmas gift for me. No matter how many times I tell her not to spend that much, she does anyways! Ugh, that’s a 150 bucks we could’ve saved to put a down-payment on a house or land!

Anyhow, my day was going great until I got home, and the smell of dog piss smacked me in the face as soon as I walked through the door. My HBW’s German Shepherd dog, decided to piss all over his kennel, the floor outside his kennel, our bookshelf, the halogen lamp, and the walls surrounding his kennel! I had to clean it up (yet again), and this did not make me a very friendly human to be around!

Oh, I wanted to kill the @#$%ing S.O.B.! You see, this dog is not my dog! It’s HBW’s! I told HBW if she wanted this dog, she would have to take care of it herself. Meaning, she was going to do all the training. Obviously, not enough training is being done, because he is 6 months old now, and should already be housebroken! It’s clear now, that once again, I’m going to have to step in and do all the work on this dog! Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, I’m just tired of being the one training them! I trained my little Boxer babe Kaiya, and she is a great dog now! It was hell for me to do that though (Boxers are notoriously hard to train), and I didn’t want to have to train another dog for at least 10 years!

Well, it’s over and done with now. Apollo has been punished for what he did, and is now conducting himself as a German Shepherd should! I’m no longer steamed about having to wipe piss off every object around his gigantic cage! Time to go plop myself in front of the Boob Tube and watch the “Date My Mom” show!

California Bad, Florida Good!

2005-12-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not writing anything for quite a while, but I’ve been awfully busy around here lately. C’mon, cut me some slack, it’s gonna be Christmas soon, and I’m still running around trying to get everything together!

Anyhow, a little while ago, I read an article on NRA.org about San Francisco voters approving Proposition H. For those of you who don’t know what the hell Proposition H is, here is a link Dumbass H. This is why we have an electoral college!

What a nightmare! I’m not understanding the logic behind this vote! The local government of SF is upset about gun deaths committed by “criminals”, so they produce a proposition which takes away the rifles and handguns of law abiding citizens? What the hell is that all about?

I just can’t fathom how voters could simply vote away their second amendment right! How could 57.79% of voters be duped into thinking this law would ever stop or curb gun violence within SF? You idiots just voted away your last line of defense against criminal thugs and other low life scum!

Where did all the common sense go (please don’t answer this, it’s rhetorical)? Criminals will always break laws, thats why they’re criminals. Criminals do stuff like that,...duh! So what makes you think that “your” new citywide ban will ever change that. You dumb nincompoops! You just punished the law abiding citizens for what CRIMINALS have done!

Thank God the NRA has stepped in to stop this nonsense by filing a lawsuit against SF!

WAY TO BLOW SAN FRANCISCO!

This type of malarky just makes me proud to be a resident of a State that has common sense, and a huge set of balls to match! I LOVE FLORIDA! My State allows you to pack serious heat everywhere you go, provided you have the proper papers! My State also just expanded upon an already existing law that kicks ass. The Castle Law! No longer is the burden of proof on the home-owner whether the guy he just blew away was a threat to his life or not!

Thats right Criminal scum, you step one foot into my castle and you’re gonna fetch yourself two to the chest and one to the head! And when the police come into my house and see your cold stiff corpse on the ground, all they’ll say is “Nice Grouping”! Even better though, is the meaning of the word “Castle” has been expanded upon. Not only does “Castle” apply to your house, but also your car, and boat too!

It’s amazing! You try to car-jack me, and I’m allowed to give you four flats and a .45 cal airbag to your noggin! Oh, and just you criminals try to steal my boat (when I can afford one), I’ll turn you head into a #$%&ing Canoe!

Photo's of the Demo

2005-11-26T21:30:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the photo's Ed!

November Snow

2005-11-26T09:57:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s snowing in November! It started last night, and is still snowing as I’m typing today. My German Shepherd puppy is going absolutely nuts! He loves the snow, and can’t get enough of it! He looks so natural out in the element! He is a fairly heavy dog already, but his feet are so damn big, he just barely sinks above the surface of the snow. It’s funny watching him run around in it too. He puts his nose straight in the snow, and then takes off like a bat out of hell. He looks like a snowplow when he does it! Oh well, time to take out my crazy boxer now! This is gonna be fun!

Another Awesome Column

2005-11-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

The left hates inequality, not evil

Tae Kwon Do Demo in Belgium

2005-11-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

Well, Saturday turned out to be a pretty hellish day for all involved with the Tae Kwon Do Demo, but in the end though, all went off fantastically!

The demonstration took place at the Expodroom (droom is pronounced drome) in the city of Bree, Belgium! The theme for the entire show was “The Sky is the Limits”!

We (the TKD demo team) were told that there would be 7,000 people in attendance, but upon arriving and then entering the Expodroom, we could clearly see that the stadium could only hold about 3,000 people.

Anyhow, only a couple of big named artists from Belgium were a part of the show. The rest was made up of dancers, ballerinas, and a couple of guys that do BMX bike tricks and breakdancing!

It was a very long day for all of us. I didn’t participate in the Demo, because the producers of the show limited the number of people that could be on stage. So I offered my services to my Master. My HBW also volunteered to help, and she really ended up saving us from disaster. Instead of the Demo team having only 2 stage hands (myself and a fella I’ll call Ireland) we had 3! Thank God too, because we wouldn’t have made the time limit given to us to set up the stage for the Demo without her.

We all started Satruday bright and early in the morning at 6:30! I had to give my neighbor kid (Fisherman), and his TKD buddy a ride to the demo. Anyway, we all hopped in the car a met up at Master’s place. From there, we all drove to the Expodroom! We had our first practice on stage at 9 in the morning, then we had another one at noon, and then another at 2 . We were supposed to be able to leave till the time of the show, but the Show Manager, wanted another run-through at 6 in the evening, so we were all stuck there till showtime!

By the time the show started at 9 in the evening, we were all exhausted. We were the second act of the night, and we were all set up backstage. I could see the crowd from where I was standing, and it was packed. All the seats were filled as well as the standing area in the middle! The Show Manager gave HBW, Ireland, and I the signal to run out and set up all the boards, bricks and weapons. We only had 30 seconds to get it all completed. We were all over the place on stage, but we got it done with only milliseconds to spare. The father of a member on the Demo Team is a conductor, and he had his orchestra come and play our music. The music for the demo was (played in this order), the Indiana Jones main theme, Star Wars’ March of the Empire theme, and the Los Angeles Olympic Games theme.

As soon as we all ran off stage, I gave the Show Manager the signal that all was ready, and he in turn signaled the TKD team to move! SHOWTIME BABY! The orchestra blasted out Indiana Jones, and the demo team burst out onto the main stage. The crowd went absolutely nuts when they came on.

It’s hard to explain the show in words, but I’ll do my best. Here goes. The team runs out like a bunch of savage warriors, and then bows to the audience. Then they pair off and go thru 1 steps and 2 steps. These are moves made for defense and then attack. Kinda like blocking and then punching, only slightly more impressive looking. Then there’s a whole lot of board breaking. During this part of the demo, I’m dressing one of the Hap Ki Do guys in his Darth Vader outfit for second part of the Demo. At the same time across stage HBW and Ireland are helping another Hap Ki Do guy get dressed as Darth Maul!

After all the boards are broken, the Orchestra breaks into the March of the Empire theme from Star Wars. How impressive that piece is to hear live. Anyhow, as soon as the song came on, the two guys that got all dressed up like Vader and Maul jumped on stage, and then started to fight each other with lightsabers. We made some cheesy lightsaber staff out of a clear tube and glowsticks. It looked really silly, but it worked and looked awesome on stage. The crowd jumped on their feet and cheered so loud you could hardly here the orchestra play! The fight lasts through the whole song and after they are done, the orchestra starts playing the L.A. Olympic theme and the Hap Ki Do team comes running on stage.

Because the Olympic theme starts off slow, the Hap Ki Do guys do one of their forms first. It’s not boring like you’d think it would be, because it is so beautiful. It’s like a dance, and when you see 5 guys doing it in unison, it’s absolutely breathtaking. Then they go into some of the Hap Ki Do attacks and takedowns. When the music starts to really pick up, the TKD team comes back out and breaks more boards, while the Hap Ki Do guys do more takedowns and throws. When the song comes close to finishing, the Hap Ki Do team splits in half and takes position on the left and right sides off the stage, and the TKD team goes straight for the bricks we’ve set up across the length of the orchestra! The Conductor comes out into the middle of the stage and starts going absolutely nuts whipping that little stick of his everywhere. The Olympic song comes to quite a loud and fast end, and when the ending came, the TKD guys jumped up and plunged fist first into a huge stack of bricks! It was so @#$%ing awesome, and the crowd cheered even loader than they did during the Vader/Maul fight we had!

HBW, Ireland and I ran onto the stage as the Demo team ran off. We quickly had to pick up all the bricks and broken boards in 30 seconds. We did it, and when we ran backstage, we were greeted with strong handshakes and deadly bear-hugs(I think my TKD master broke a couple of my ribs when he bear-hugged me). We were screaming and shouting and jumping around so much, the the Show Manager had to run back and tell us to shut the hell up! He was a friggin prick to us the whole day, so we basically told him to go @#$% himself and continued being insanely loud!

We all stayed and watched the rest of the show. We would have left after our set, but the Demo team had to stick around because at the end of the show they had to come back on stage and take a huge group bow.

By the time HBW, the neighbor kid (Fisherman), and I got home, it was almost 1 in the morning. As soon as we opened up the door to our house though, we knew the day wasn’t over for us yet. We got hit by a waft of dog shit in the house. Our German Shepherd puppy pooped all over his huge kennel, and decided to paint everywhere with it. The neighbors other son(AmericanWannabe) was supposed to be watching the dogs. Contrary to what we thought he didn’t do the whole day, he actually was doing. He was doing such a great job that he fed our puppy 4 bowls of dog food (He told us about the food today when he came over to drop off the keys to the house, and HBW and I questioned him about Apollo pooping and painting)!

Oh, well though. All’s well that ends well. We cleaned his “artwork” up as good as we could and then hit the hay for the night. Besides having to clean up dogshit, HBW and I had an awesome day in Belgium!

Wise Old Man

2005-11-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

So, about a month or so ago I was cruising the net looking for some land to oogle at but not be able to purchase. My HBW and I have agreed since we’ve been married that we want a good size chunk of land out in the midwest. We often dream of having that easy going country lifestyle with the log cabin house and some horses and other farm animals running about.

Anyhow, while clicking through several midwest reality company's listings, I came upon that perfect piece of land HBW and I always dream about. It was about 200 acres of land with a reservoir bordered by state land! It was perfect land for horses too, because it had plenty of grazing grounds. It was priced at 200,000 dollars. Not bad for just land.

Well, on our current budget (which is basically bread-crumbs), we couldn’t quite afford such a thing. My fluttering heart just sank deep into my chest after reality set in. Irrational thoughts started to flow into my mind at this point. Thoughts like “ I was a vet, I could just go to the VA and they’ll give me a loan”, or “I could just go to Andrews Federal Credit Union, and they’ll surely give me a loan for 200,000”! My heart started to flutter again with these thoughts, but quickly stopped beating altogether when the second rational thought of the evening hit my brain! I passed out, but quickly awoke hating the fact that we’re poor! Yeah, the rational thought that came to mind was “We really haven’t saved a penny since we’ve been married,...we can’t even make a down-payment” and “No bank in their right mind would ever give us a loan for 200,000 when we’re making peanuts and saving nothing”! I was beginning to become very depressed about the situation. So I did the very next thing that came to my mind! I called my Father.

Yeah, it’s not easy calling one’s own father to beg for money. Especially when you’ve done nothing to deserve the money you’re about to beg for. On top of that, I have a huge guilt trip when asking my parents for any kind of monetary assistance. Which is quite frankly why I’ve never asked for any help since HBW and I have been married. I have the typical “I’m a friggin man, I’ll plow my own way through this world” attitude. In fact I’ve only asked my parents for help a handful of times on things like my car payment, gas, and things that I put on my credit card that I shouldn’t have. I still feel bad about having them help me out, and one day I plan on paying them back for it. I know they won’t except it, but I’m going to do it just to prove a point. Anyhow, back to the subject of Me attempting to beg my father for moolah!

My father answered the phone in his typical sleepy/grumpy combo with a “Yeah,...what”. I fully expect this type of response every time I call. It’s just the way my Dad answers the phone. Well, I did everything but flat out ask him for the dinero. I skipped and danced around the subject like an Olympic gymnast! These were the lines used.

“So Dad, you still interested in land out in Montana”?

“Yes”, he replied.

“So Dad, I found this nice piece of land out in Montana for 200,000”!

“Uh-huh”he again replied.

“Well...I just thought you’d...want to know about it”!

“Well that sounds nice Jug, but right now I’m not interested in spending any money” he stated.

“But it’s a great piece of land though” I spewed out as quickly as possible!

“Ok, let me guess, this really isn’t about land for me is it” he asked.

“Um,...well...no not really” I replied.

My father knew the whole time that I was giving him “the game”, but he waited till I got it all out. He didn’t crush me with a devastating NO!, but instead motivated the hell out of me with an hour long speech! He went through some “struggling to get by” stories with my Mom and all three of us kids. He also gave me a few more ideas about how to improve our saving habits. But the most important thing he said to me was this!

“I can’t give you the money Jug. It’s not because I don’t want to, because I do, but I would be wronging you if I did. Are you looking at that piece of land right now? Good! I want you to look at that land, and dream about having it! I want you to think about the horses on it, the little log cabin your putting up! I want you to think about all of these things that you want! Now, dreaming is a wonderful thing Jug, but this dream will only come true with hard work and good spending habits. Just imagine how you guys will feel when you’ve finally purchased what you’ve been dreaming about for so long with your hard earned money! Thats a feeling you’ll never get if I just give you the money! You know what you have to do, SO JUST DO IT!”

Now, my mom often refers to my father as the “The crazy one”, “old grouch”, or the “stubborn old man”, and he certainly fits these names, but I tell you what, I think he’s also the “Wise Old Man of the Recliner”!

Since the day that I spoke with my father, I’ve done everything that he advised me to do. I’ve kept all of our sales slips. I’ve tracked all of our spending so far this month. I hate Microsoft excel, so I’ve made my charts with Adobe Illustrator. I’ve got charts for everything. It’s gotten to a point now, that my wife is referring to me as the Budget Nazi! The fact of the matter is, what my Dad suggested is actually working. We’ve already changed a lot of our spending habits! We eat out less, we buy less DVD’s, and we even watch out for impulsive buying now!

Anyway, because of all of these things we’ve been doing with the budget lately, for the first time in the two years we’ve been married, I’m able to put $200.00 into one of our savings accounts! This isn’t just any savings account though, it’s the “Down payment on our Dream” savings account! I know it sounds kind of odd, but the entire time we’ve been living here in the Netherlands we’ve only managed to save up about a thousand smackers. It’s kind of sad really, but we refuse to give up our dream, and now we’re making sure they will come true.

Thanks Dad, you’re the best!

Awesome Column by Doug Giles

2005-11-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

This is absolutely fantastic!
French Fried Muslim Madness

Give an Inch, and They'll take a Foot

2005-11-09T23:10:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s been quite a bit of time since my last blog, so you’ll have to forgive me. Again I have no excuse for this. I simply haven’t felt like writing anything, and so I didn’t!

Anyhow, been pretty busy over here. My HBW’s eye surgery has gone completely wrong, and I now have to drive her everywhere. She’s not blind, but pretty damn close. One of her eyes is close to perfect, but the other is basically dead. She’ll have to get the laser surgery again to fix the problem that was created by a lousy first surgery. I don’t know if I can go through another eye surgery with her. I think I’m going to have to just drive her to the hospital, and leave.

I’m still doing Tae Kwon Do, and am getting better with every class. I’m not quite sure if I’ll ever be able to get back to the level I was at when I was younger, but time will tell. I’m not as rusty as I was when I started back again, but I still can’t move as good as I’d like. Even though I’ve had the 3 hernias corrected, I still can’t move my legs like I’d used to. I still get really sharp pains ever now and then when I do roundhouse kicks. The doctor told me it’s because the mesh he put inside me is gonna move around every now and then, and it will hurt when it does this. YEAH I’D SAY IT HURTS! It doesn’t matter though, I’m just glad I’m doing TKD again!

Things are heating up over here a bit, due to the whole riots in France situation. Heard rumors today that it has spread to Antwerp. Not that I know if it’s true or not. There is an old saying to live by and that is “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see”. Another little rumor going on around here is that it is going to spread throughout other cities in western Europe. Haven’t seen that happening yet, so we’ll give it some time.

Personally, this is typical of Muslims throughout Europe. They complain that society here is not welcoming them with open arms and giving them jobs, but at the same time they isolate themselves from the very society they want embracing them! They refuse to assimilate! In Germany most of the Turks refuse to learn the native tongue. And yet they wonder why the Germans hate their guts!

Anyhow, the French reaction to the riots is so typical of a passive socialist society. It only took about 10 days and an innocent life for the French to impose some sort of curfew. And now, as I’ve just heard on the Canadian Forces Network radio station, the French government has come up with a “brilliant” plan to stop the muslims from sacking all French city’s. They are going to give more free money to the poor muslim extremists (who are unwilling to integrate), job training and a subsidized government work, and a “tax-free zone” for impoverished neighborhoods.

Um, Job training? You mean to tell me that even if I’m a lazy bastard who happens to turn down your “job training”, the fact that I’m poor and Muslim means you’ll give me some goony work for a couple hours a week, and I’ll still be able to collect my precious government check anyway? Sweet, maybe I’ll burn city’s every couple of years or so, and you’ll hand out more freebies to me! Let’s face the facts here France, these Muslim nuts don’t care about your job training plan, and don’t want to be a part of your society! THESE IDIOTS BURNED DOWN A SCHOOL FOR GOD SAKES!

The fact of the matter is, this plan doesn’t eliminate the problem at hand. These Muslim rioters have not, and will never be willing to integrate into European society. They are unwilling to learn the languages of their new country, take advantage of a western education, or enjoy the one thing western societies have, FREEDOM! Although I may have worded that last statement a bit wrong, because in any other type of society besides a free one, as soon as they burned one car, the would have been snatched up by secret police, taken to a gulag, tortured, and then worked to death! So perhaps they are enjoying their newfound freedom.

The main problem here is not the fact that they can’t get jobs, it’s that they won’t try hard enough to integrate themselves. Oh sure, they get off their duffs and burn a few cities down, but getting off their duffs to look for a job, or learn the language, or embrace the culture...well thats...simply unheard of. Maybe, just maybe if these Muslim crazies tried to integrate, the people of France, and Europe for that matter wouldn’t be so apprehensive around them. The French people aren’t holding them down, if anything they’re holding their hands and won’t let go. I mean how much can you possibly do for a people! They were already receiving government money, housing, and schooling! And now because they are poor and rioting they get to have job training, and if they choose not to do it, they’ll be placed in a doozy government job and still collect welfare!

Let’s see here, no job and I’ll still collect a check, and if I get a job, I’ll collect no welfare check, have to pay for my own house, and education. Gee what one will I take! It’s only human nature to be lazy, and the more you spoon feed these idiots, the less they’ll integrate! DUH!

Oh well, enough bitching for now, I’m off to bed

Dinner in GK and an Animal Emergency

2005-10-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight HBW and I went out to dinner with our good friends Stockman and Frogfriend! We were supposed to have gone to some sort of restaurant in Ulich Germany where witches were burned at the stake, but unfortunately I’m a bit sick. I’ve come down with what I think is some sort of food poisoning from a Chinese dinner HBW and I had two days ago. I’ve been sick to my stomach ever since that evening.

Anyhow, we were all suppose to meet up at the GK train station and then carpool to Ulich, but because of my current illness we chose instead to stick around GK and eat dinner. I’m really bummed about not being able to eat where witches and warlocks were burned to death, but I just couldn’t handle another second in a car. Every bump we hit on the way to GK made my guts feel as if they were going to fall out of my ass.

So the last time we were in GK for dinner, we didn’t get to eat at the restaurant that Stockman had wanted to go because we hadn’t made reservations. So, since Stockman and Frogfriend said it was alright that we didn’t go to Ulich for dinner, we all decided to eat at the restaurant we were turned away from the last time we were in town. I don’t know the name of it (perhaps Stockman can tell in the comments portion), but if you’re ever in Germany and in the GK area, you absolutely have to eat here! For an appetizer I had “edible snails” (this is how it was translated from german to english in the menu), as if a restaurant would ever serve any other kind of snail! We all had a good laugh about it, because like I said in a previous post, the Germans absolutely love to murder our written language. For my main course I had Sauerbraten, which was absolutely mouth watering! You didn’t even need a knife for the meat it was so damn tender! It reminded me so much of my grandmothers cooking when I’d sleep over on weekends! My Nan used to cook some awesome German dishes (not that I knew they were German when I was a kid, I just knew they were damn tasty)! We all skipped desert, because we really ate our fill of food. It was very painful for me to put all that food down my mouth because of my stomach, but it was absolutely worth it!

Oh by the way, in this restaurant they also happen to brew their own beer as well. Stockman and I downed two pitchers of their home brewed dark beer! I was so amazed at the flavor. I’m telling you, I won’t be able to drink beer when I get back to the States, because it just won’t be the same. You out there in the cyberworld may think I’m a bit loopy, and perhaps you’re right, but not about this subject! German beer is #$%@ing fantastic and when I get back to the States I’m going to get “The Shakes” from withdraw!

After our huge dinner, that was incredibly painful yet completely fulfilling, we all walked to a small local pub and had a cup of joe! We chatted for a little bit, but by this time I was really in a lot of pain so we decided to part ways and head home! I really hate being sick, because it is a downer for everybody around you. I wanted to be more excited and talkative this evening, but I just couldn’t. In the end though, I still had a great time, and am glad I decided not to stay home!

I wish my night could have ended when we got home, but as soon as we got in the door and let my crazy boxer Kaiya out of her cage, I noticed that she had broken out with hives! It scared the shit out of HBW and I, and we called our vets emergency number and rushed her over to his clinic! She looked like a bumpy blimp! Our vet said we did the right thing by calling him, because she most likely would have swelled a lot more and could possibly have choked to death! Apparently she had some sort of allergic reaction with a seasonal plant/weed in our garden, and that it is fairly common in Boxers to have a reaction to this vegetation! The vet just gave her some sort of shot, and sent us on our way! As of now, the swelling is down by 80 percent and all it looks like is little bumps all over her body!

Another Evening with the God of War

2005-10-26T00:05:00.000-07:00

The last 3 evenings here in the Netherlands has been nothing but rain! I don’t mind the rain, but what I do mind is when it starts to get in the way of my backyard astronomy! Anyhow, this evening the clouds decided to depart and the stars were out as brightly as they could shine through our atmosphere! Mars was especially bright tonight! I was so pumped too, because this was my 3rd time using my new “all powerful” lens my HBW got me for our anniversary! I’m glad I've got this new lens because the view of Mars was breathtaking! Grant it I couldn’t see everything in super high detail, but I could see the darkened areas of canyons and the bright desert areas! I must admit though, I’d still rather be walking around on the surface of Mars exploring than being in my backyard looking at the God of War though a telescope!

Well, I don’t have one of those nifty cameras you can hook up to the telescope to take pictures of the Planets with, so I had to go ghetto style and break out my somewhat crappy digital camera! I just set that suckers lens right on the telescope lens. Yeah, that worked great...just like trying to polish a turd! I must have taken a hundred shots, but only one came out somewhat decent. Um, I shouldn’t even give it a decent rating, because if I didn’t tell you it was Mars, you’d just think it was a motorcycle headlight! Oh hell, at least I gave it a try! Anyhow, enjoy the ONE picture!

A New Member to the J-a-R Team

2005-10-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

There is a new member of the Jug-a-Rum household now! While down in Landstuhl, Germany my HBW and I purchased a German Shepherd puppy! It wasn’t my idea. In fact, I tried my hardest to discourage my HBW from getting him. None of my tactics worked, and in the end she still got the dog. It cost us a whopping 550 Euros! I shouldn’t really complain about the price though, because most GS pups cost 600 or even 1300 Euros!

His name is Apollo, and although we both don’t really care for the name, he recognizes it, so we kept it. He is only 3 and a half months old, and when he reaches adulthood, I think he’ll fit the name. He is very smart dog (as I’d expect a GS to be)! He walks by my side with little pulling, he sits most of the time when I stop walking, he’s already learned not to jump up on people, and he plays fetch really well. The only thing I’m having a bit of trouble with, is the housebreaking. He pees in the house at least once a day for no good reason. Always have to hate this part of getting a puppy! I’ll eventually win though!
Our other dog Kaiya (craziest boxer on Earth), opened up a major can of whoop ass on the Pup the first time we introduced them. He started at her as soon as he saw her, so Kaiya just laid into him. You’d think my Boxer was a part of the WWE with the type of smackdown she gave him! She speared him, tossed him up and onto his back, and then pinned him for a 10 count! He took the beating as good as one could expect for a puppy. He just got up, and ran over to Mommy!

Kaiya was a bit jealous for a couple of days, but now we’re almost back to normal. The dogs love each other now. Well, for the most part they love each other. Food and Goodies always get in the way of their love. They’ll have a little battle royal over a crumb of food right in the living room when I’m watching a decent show on the TV. I don’t mind though, I’m a guy and guys like fights!

Oh well, it’s time to take the little monster out for a walk before a pees all over our house!

HBW gets new eyes, I get Hell!

2005-10-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

Last Monday my HBW and I left for Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, so she could get her eyes fixed. She got the Laser Correction done, because she was tired of wearing those goofy military glasses and not being able to see anything. We had to stay in Landstuhl for 4 days! Monday was the drive down and check-in, Tuesday was for final preparations before surgery, Wednesday was operation day, and Thursday was post-op checkup and the drive home. I can’t really explain how the surgery went, because I didn’t go through it, but I’ll explain what I went through because of it.

Oh, you thought I got off scott free because I was the driver? Yeah right, I could only wish that the 4 days I took off of work to go to Landstuhl was a vacation! Sadly, it wasn’t. It was hell! Although my wife likes to tout that she has a high pain tolerance, she really doesn’t! It’s more like the pain tolerance of an infant! Constant whining and moaning! It never stopped! I understand that “eyes” are very sensitive, but she had a whole bottle of Codeine to numb that shit up! I don’t know wether it’s just my wife or all women in general, but after some kind of “event” (big or small), she expects to be pampered and waited on constantly! Damn it got old fast! I had to help her with everything! Eye-drops, walking her to the bathroom, feeding her, tucking her in every time she wanted to sleep! I didn’t even get this kind of treatment when I was in the hospital for my hernias! Sure she came around everyday, but I’m the one who had to get up and walk to the bathroom by myself (except the first time when Stockman had to help me over)! Anyhow, while she was doped up on codeine, I was accused of not doing enough to comfort her. Can you believe that! I almost fell off the corner of the bed when she said that!

Things were only made worse by the fact that the bed in the hotel room was just springs with a thin layer of padding! I move around a whole lot in my sleep, and every time I moved so did the bed, waking my wife up every time! This is something that became old very fast too, because every time she’d wake up it was more whining and moaning! More pampering had to be done in order to avoid a shit-fit! So, you’ve probably guessed it, I didn’t get a wink of sleep! Oh, did I happen to mention that I was the one driving us back home the following day? Yeah, that sure sucked too! I refuse to write about that nightmare!

Anyhow, this part is for all the married men out there. If your wife ever wants to get laser eye surgery and you can’t seem to persuade her not to do it, I suggest getting these two items. Duct tape and a tranquilizer gun with enough tranq to knock out an elephant! The duct tape is to put a damper on the moaning, and the tranquilizer gun is to put her out for a couple of days so you can get some sleep!

TKD in the NL

2005-10-07T23:00:00.000-07:00

Well now that I’ve been rebuilt by the fantastic German doctors, I’ve decided to start practicing Tae Kwon Do again! I’ve been wanting to get back into it, and being able to move my legs again has made it possible. My neighbors eldest son whom I’ll call Fisherman does TKD in Merkelbeek (which is the next town over), so I’ve been going with him for a little over a month now. I’m a tad rusty, but I’m still pretty good.

I’ll give you a bit of history about me now (like anybody gives a damn). I started TKD when, as far as I can remember, about 9 years old. I went to a small school run by Sabeom Nim Tim Gleason till I was about a green belt or so. My father (for whatever reason he had back then) decided that I needed to switch schools, so I started going to TKD at Hong’s TKD in Venice FL. Hong’s later became Family TKD of Venice (I think thats what it is being called now). Kyong S. Park was my Sabeom Nim at the school, and while there I earned my black belt 1st degree. My father (again for whatever reason) decided that I needed to switch schools again. I started going to TKD at Master Tim Gleasons school again where I eventually earned my second degree black belt.

It’s been about 6 years since I’ve done TKD, but my new Sabeom Nim is allowing me to keep my Second Degree Black Belt! That made me happy, because although I’m a tad rusty I’m not rusty enough to start back at the bottom.
Anyhow, I’m super pumped that I get to do this again, so I figured I’d write about it! The TKD school that I attend is on the web too. If you can read a little bit of Dutch, you’ll really enjoy it. If not, just click buttons and you’ll still enjoy it. Here is a link.

Tae Kwon Do

Ribs, Loins, and Chops...Oh My!

2005-10-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well it’s been quite some time since my last entry, but here I am again. I’m not gonna say I’m sorry this time, because I wouldn’t really mean it! Instead I’ll give a lame excuse like work was hard, and I was tired. Although completely untrue, thats my excuse.

So, moving on now...

Last Saturday, I was invited over to my new neighbors house for a two man BBQ. His wife was away for the night and my wife is gone for the next two weeks, so we figured what better time to get shit-faced than Saturday. My neighbor is a Scottish fella in the Royal Air Force, so I’ll call him...BRAVEHEART! Anyhow, when Saturday came around it was looking pretty grim outside and I didn’t think we were going to be able to grill. But, it’s as if Zeus knew if he didn’t part his thunderclouds before the BBQ, I was gonna march straight up Mount Olympus and whoop him square in his godly junk! He parted the storm clouds awfully quick that afternoon, and all was well for the BBQ! We cooked a ton of meat product! Ribs, Loins, Drumsticks, Sausage! It was a meal fit for a King! We started popping brews as soon as we started cooking, and that was about 6 pm. Even though the sun was out in all it's bright glory, it was cold outside so we broke out some firewood, and made ourselves a campfire out of Braveheart’s small Weber grill! It was a great evening, and we both got completely hammered! Good thing it was a Saturday, because the amount of alcohol I ingested that night knocked me into Monday! Yeah, I lost a day!

So anyhow, I woke up bright and early Monday to get ready for my “kinda new” job in the HS Cafeteria. I ended up being late...again! It doesn’t matter how early I wake up, I’m always five minutes late. Anyhow, my job is cake. I just make salads and sandwiches as soon as I get in, then I clean for a bit, run a register for an hour or so, then its some more cleaning, and then it’s off for home before 3! Hows that for a run-on!

Well, as soon as I got home from work and finished walking the dog, Braveheart asked me over for a BBQ he was having with his NATO work buddies. I said “oh ok”, and told myself that I would only down a maximum 3 beers. Yeah right, one beer became two, and two beers ended up becoming 10! Oh, I was damn wasted! My other neighbors were there too, and American Wannabe’s father was just as toasted as me. I’m glad I only live a few feet away from Braveheart’s house, because I was a stumbling fool! American Wannabe had to take my dog out for her final nightly walk, because I just couldn’t do it. Oh, did I mention I had to be at work at 9 and by the time I stumbled off to my humble abode it was 2 am? Um yeah, I so wished that I could have lost Tuesday!

I got up at half past 8 on Tuesday still quite a bit drunk. I would have called in sick to work with the old Brown Bottle Flu, but I didn’t have the number. I ended up being a half hour late, and stinking of booze. I sure had a great time the night before, but I was paying for it at work. Let’s face it folks, having ten beers the night before and then having to serve 400 screaming kids their lunch the following day just plain sucks! Oh well, I survived, but definitely won’t being drinking that much again for some time!

On a side note for those of you out there in cyberworld having a good laugh and saying shit like “He only had 10 beers, and he was a stumbling idiot”? “What does this guy have, the tolerance of a squirrel”? Well the answer is a resounding “HELL NO”! I do not have the tolerance of a squirrel! The Europeans take their beer a bit more serious than we Americans do. I’ll give some examples.

Example 1. In Europe (at least western Europe), beer is always cheaper than water.

Example 2. Compared to European beer bottles, a bottle of Budweiser looks like a friggin shot glass! I’d say the average amount of beer in a European bottle is pretty damn close to 40 oz.

Example 3. Most Europeans basically tell the big beer companies to “FUCK OFF”, and have a locally brewed beer instead! Why you ask? It’s partially about pride for your area, but also because the local beer actually has damn good flavor to it. Lets face it folks, a lot of the local brewers have been brewing the most bad ass beer since the Roman days.

Allrightythen, thats all I’ve got for you.

-Jug